Swedish News:

More women to the Swedish forests. Rainy Swedish summer means expensive beer. Stolen Zorn. Parents of large families rejected. No arctic fox cubs.  

• More women to the Swedish forests
  Sweden has huge forests, but not too many women work in the forest industry: only one woman to every nine men. Two main players in the industry want to change that. Skogs-och lantarbetsgivareförbundet (SLA or Forestry and Agricultural Employers Association) and Skogsentreprenörerna (SME or The Forest Entrepreneurs) have created a plan of action for making more women go into the industry. One proposal is to find better possibilities for education for those women who are interested in changing careers, are unemployed or are new arrivals to Sweden. SLA and SME want to become better at marketing the forest industry to the young, especially girls, as well. They also want to investigate the industry, which by tradition is considered “masculine," to make it more equal.

• Rainy summer means expensive beer
  This year's rainy Swedish summer may mean more expensive beer. Fungus threaten the Swedish harvest of malt, making it unusable and in just a few weeks the price for malt seeds has gone up with 35%, according to Dagens Industri. “Beer prices are entirely dependent on the harvest (of malt seeds),” says Mikael Hällström at Spendrups, to DI. Even on the continent there are problems with the hops harvests that are about to rot because of heavy rains.

• Stolen Zorn
  During a recent burglary in a villa on Lidingo, Stockholm, items valued at over 3 million SEK ($436,402.77) were stolen. One of them a painting by Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860-1920). “The burglars broke in through the main entrance,” says Lars Byström at Länskriminalpolisen. It’s unclear exactly when the crime was committed, as the family living in the house was gone for weeks. “We received a phone call from people passing by, saying they felt the door looked funny,” Byström continues. When police arrived, they saw that the door had been broken in through. “They stole art, jewelry, and weapons to a value of over 3 million SEK,” Byström continues. Among the stolen articles is Zorn’s painting “Flickan” (the Girl), valued at 1.2 million SEK ($174,703.20). But also works by Albert Edelfelt, Helmer Osslund, Isaak Grünewald, Gennady Pasko, and Carrier Belleuse were stolen. Swedish police now asks the public for help. Says detective Egon Bergqvist: “We have no leads, that’s why we are now asking for help.”

• Parents of large families rejected
  Are you over 55? A Jew or a Moslem? Do you have a non-European background? Are you overweight? Do you have more than one child? If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, prepare to be rejected by the Swedish job market. Researchers at Institutet för arbetsmarknads- och utbildningspolitisk (the Institute for Evaluation of Labor Market and Education Policy) at Uppsala University have mapped out the kind of criteria that increase your risk of being rejected by employers. They did a study by comparing pairs of similar people: In each pair, one person had one of the criterion that’s discriminated against, and the other didn’t. The result, based on thee answers from 426 trials, shows the risk of being rejected increases distinctly after the birth of a person's second child. To be the parent of a large family gives you a 25 percent lower chance to be offered employment. If, on top of that, the employer finds out you have a non-European background, your chances for getting that job decrease another 25 percent. “Perhaps it’s a bit surprising,” says national economist Per Johansson at Uppsala University, one of the study’s three authors. “Supposedly the employer fears these people will be gone a lot due to caring for a sick child.” No difference between the genders among parents with multiple children was discovered, however—in general, it didn’t seem as if employers favored men over women or vice versa. And what if you have problems with your weight? Well, if you manage to get your weight under control, you increase your chances at getting hired by about 80 percent. If you’re over 55 years old, you have a 64 percent lower chance at getting called for an interview. There was no difference between private and public employers.

• Homeless woman couldn't apply
  Arbetsformedlingen (The Swedish Public Employment Service) in Malmoe, Sweden is being criticized by JO (Justitieombudsmannen – The Parliamentary Ombudsman) for not having allowed a homeless woman to remain registered. According to the employer at Arbetsförmedlingen, the woman’s social status was too complicated; so complicated in fact that she was taken off the register. The employer didn’t think the woman would profit from work, education, and trainee posts, according to daily Skånskan. JO criticizes Arbetsförmedlingen for having overruled the woman’s wish to remain registered.

• No arctic fox cubs
  Not a single litter of arctic foxes has been found in Scandinavia this year, according to Swedish Television's Jämtlandsnytt. The reason is thought to be that there are few rodents this year, and the arctic fox adapts according to food access. Last year some 800 arctic fox cubs were born in Scandinavia, which was a record. 50 percent of them were born in Jämtland, Sweden. The county board is now increasing its supplementary feedings for the cubs that are around to survive until there are more rodents.