Mats Sandgren, president of SCA Skog, takes on the role of chairman of the board in The Federation of Swedish Forestry and agricultural employers, SLA, that organizes 4 000 members with approximately 25 000 employees.
How do you feel about your new position?
– It feels responsible and interesting, and the green industries have a bright future. The need for labour in those sectors is a question we will give a lot of attention. Luckily we´re in a business with an increasing demand for our products, for example forest products which are long-term sustainable, locally produced Swedish eatables and agricultural products.
What is your main mission right now?
– 2014 is not a year of wage negotiations, so the task will be to take action when it comes to providing our businesses with competence. Attracting new groups, such as women, to our lines of business is an important question, as well as terms of condition for foreign labour. Forestry and silviculture wouldn´t survive without foreign manpower. This we do by educating our member companies, informing in various media and with help from our skilful representatives those have great knowledge about Swedish employment legislation.
How do look upon the future when it comes to forestry and the pulp industry´s possibilities?
– There is an increased demand for houses built of tree and, in general, an interest in renewable materials. Most likely different kinds of packaging solutions will be even more demanded as global trading moves forward, and even though newspapers are a decreasing area, I think we will be producing newsprint also in the future, in a smaller scale. It is important that the forest industry continues to seek new product areas and develop the existing ones
