Since 2024 I’ve been researching the social dynamics surrounding the status quo of probably the most outstanding Ecu battery producers in Skellefteå, Sweden. I’ve interviewed virtually 40 other people, from civil servants, former Northvolt workers and their members of the family, to employees at non-profit organisations supporting marginalised teams.
Between 2022 and 2024 the task marketplace in Skellefteå used to be booming and the unemployment fee used to be at a document low. But, in step with my interviewees, other people with disabilities and the ones experiencing neurodivergence weren’t being hired via Northvolt. This fact is in stark distinction with the EU´s declaration that the golf green transition must be simply and inclusive.
Final March, Northvolt declared chapter. This got here as an enormous blow to the EU, because it intended that probably the most few attainable competitors to China’s EV battery manufacturing had long gone beneath.
This flagship gigafactory within the north of Sweden, had hired 4,000 other people. Its status quo had required the municipality to step up housing development, infrastructural building and toughen its training and healthcare choices.
However the manufacturing unit didn’t construct the Swedish-made batteries it had promised to its shoppers and shareholders. Even though call for for EVs reduced, provide chains have been disrupted as a result of converting geopolitical prerequisites and the corporate confronted main monetary difficulties.
Earlier than Northvolt began to construct the manufacturing unit in 2018, Skellefteå used to be a slightly sleepy the town with a falling inhabitants and an financial system that had slumped since its pre-Nineteen Nineties financial prosperity when mining used to be the primary source of revenue for many locals. The status quo of a gigafactory used to be welcomed via politicians and the group. The only real center of attention used to be on making improvements to the native financial system via task advent.
My analysis presentations that Northvolt jobs have been taken up via locals who left jobs at school and healthcare as a result of the upper pay. This left the ones different sectors wanting professional labour. Northvolt additionally relied closely on using immigrants who moved from all over the place the arena to Skellefteå to paintings in EV batteries manufacturing.
In spite of this scarcity of professional labour, neurodivergent other people dwelling in Skellefteå – the ones experiencing attention-deficit hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD) and dyslexia or at the autism spectrum dysfunction – and other people with disabilities didn’t get jobs.
What makes the golf green transition ‘just’? Local weather justice skilled Alix Dietzel explains.
Northvolt did rent neurodivergent other people for a duration, in step with one interviewee from a charity that helps neurodivergent other people in gaining access to the task marketplace:
“To be neurodivergent was seen as something positive. They would get a salary and become independent. Northvolt did tests and neurodivergent candidates would perform very well. But then they stopped. They probably wanted to recruit and hire people faster. Basically, everyone else applying, even without any relevant experience, was getting jobs”.
The golf green transition must contain growing employment for everybody.
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Some other worker of a non-profit organisation instructed me: “At a time when everyone has a job, with low unemployment rate, what does it say on me that I am still without a job?! How do I motivate my existence? How can it be that I am left behind when everyone is getting included in this positive societal change?”
Many of us I interviewed instructed me they felt a loss of self worth. Being disabled used to be already difficult, however feeling rejected via a flourishing task marketplace used to be every other main blow.
Brushed aside abilities, ignored alternatives
Other people with ADHD, dyslexia and at the autism spectrum dysfunction may also be inventive, leading edge and regularly enjoy classes of deep center of attention and a spotlight to element which might be extremely recommended when operating on intricate duties, equivalent to development a lithium battery or checking its high quality.
Firms that experience employed neurodivergent other people tended to enjoy a spice up in productiveness and an growth in place of business tradition. Inclusive hiring practices would advertise sustainable financial enlargement via respectable paintings for all and scale back the danger of poverty and unemployment for other people with disabilities, in comparison to employees with out disabilities.
Jobs created in the course of the inexperienced transition come with roles equivalent to technicians and specialists – employment alternatives that may be a are compatible for other people with disabilities with out making main lodging. Firms claiming to be sustainable wish to double down on their commitments to attaining inclusivity.
Lyten, a Californian start-up whose industry is serious about lithium-sulphur batteries, obtained all Northvolt’s property in Sweden in August 2025. Whilst it’s nonetheless too early to grasp what number of people might be hired via Lyten in Skellefteå, this transition of possession items a chance to grasp the objectives of the Ecu and Swedish inexperienced transition. My analysis presentations that honest, simply and inclusive employment prerequisites aren’t but a fact.
In observe, honest and inclusive employment prerequisites may contain providing extra part-time employment, in order that extra other people with disabilities can get entry to formal employment. Through embracing an open angle, tailored hiring practices and versatile operating prerequisites, Lyten could be a catalyst for a extra inclusive inexperienced transition in Sweden.
The Dialog approached Lyten for remark however gained no reaction.
