Since November last year, around 1,700 people have moved from Skellefteå, in the nothern part of Sweden. The municipality expects a further 1,300 people to move by the end of the year.
The reason is the disastrous but expected giant bankruptcy of the Northvolt battery factory.
– We’re pretty sure that around 3,000 people have moved out of Skellefteå in one year, from November last year to November this year, Samuel Lundqvist, head of finance at Skellefteå municipality, told SVT.
Today, 76,840 people live in the municipality, following a population growth of just over 5,300 people since 2021, largely due to Northvolt. But now that the battery factory is lying fallow, more people are expected to move.
– Unless production at the battery factory starts up again, we expect around 1,000 more people to move, says Lundqvist.
This means that a total of 4,000 people will leave Skellefteå in just over a year, representing almost 6.5 per cent of the population. This obviously has consequences for the housing market.
– We need to look at the investment side and housing construction, says Lundqvist.
Housing prices have fallen by around 20 per cent in a short space of time. This means that even those who still have jobs in the municipality are seeing large parts of their wealth disappear into thin air.
But of course the situation is worst for newcomers who have taken out loans to buy property and are now being forced to move.
Skellefteå has long been one of Sweden’s richest municipalities, largely thanks to income from hydropower. The municipality owns an entire river with dozens of power stations, and its growth ambitions have been huge: 95,000 inhabitants by 2030 and 105,000 by 2040 have been dreamed of.
Northvolt created tremendous optimism in the municipality, which a few years ago wrote enthusiastically about the «Northvolt effect» on its website:
The establishment of the Northvolt battery factory is creating ripple effects throughout Skellefteå municipality. Building booms, investments in infrastructure and great confidence in the future follow in the wake of the factory’s construction – a Northvolt effect.
– This benefits everyone, said Sofia Lindström at the Västerbotten Chamber of Commerce.
But after betting on Northvolt to save the world through the green shift and battery production, the municipality is now experiencing a rapidly declining population and the future looks pretty bleak.</p
Bankruptcy came, as Ernest Hemingway once put it, first gradually, then suddenly. In June, after a long period in which the battery factory went from crisis to crisis, it was all over. The debt after the bankruptcy totalled SEK 80 billion, aroung 8 billion US dollars.
– It’s a very heavy day, and it’s been a heavy journey since last autumn, said city councillor Lorents Burman (S) at the time.
Nevertheless, the municipality has not given up on the climate and battery dream, and is now supporting Northvolt’s bankruptcy estate in its efforts to find new owners who can continue the business.
Not everyone was surprised that Northvolt ended up as a financial disaster. Document has been following the predicted demise for several years.
