1- Could you rapidly present your Training Institute/Region?
Västmanland is a county within the Stockholm Region with 10 municipalities. Västerås is the major city (130.000 inhabitants).
Västmanland is the industrial cradle of Sweden. The manufacturing industry has 25 % of the labour force. Example of companies sited in Västmanland are: Volvo Powertrain AB, ABB, Alstom, Bombardier, Getrag All Weel Drive AB, SAAB Aerotech, Westinghouse, Ica Sverige AB Seco Tools AB.
The economic situation for municipalities, companies and individuals, due to the present economic crises, varies a lot depending of what branches you find.
The population is growing in our region. We do have challenges in the fields of i.e. building better infrastructure for communications and matching of output and demand in the labour force. We also need to develop the research environment and the Innovation system.
The municipalities are active in education and training of adults. There has been change in recent years due to fewer subsidies from government for this work. Some municipalities have put in more money from their own budget, and some has not. In the past recent years we have had a very strong labour market with low rate of unemployment. This will change due to the global economic situation.
Most municipalities have a distance learning centre (lärcenter). Here you can take part in i.e. university courses. The aim is that personnel at these centres will work more as brokers in the future. By that means more efficient matching between demand and supply in education and training.
We have a University College called Mälardalens högskola (www.mdh.se) with one campus in Västerås and one in Eskilstuna (County of Sörmland). They perform quite well in matching with needs and demand from industry. For example they are managing a programme called “The Robotics Valley” (www.robotdalen.se/). They are also involved in our Technology/ Science Park, situated in Västerås (www.teknikbyn.se).
2- Which are your experiences in the field of restructuring?
Since Västmanland´s economy still is based on manufacruring industry we have had an ongoing change for many decades. In previous crises we have worked quite a lot with actions concerning education of adults/unemployed.
We own together with the government a regional business development agency called Almi Företagspartner AB. Almis´s aim is to work with company funding, support to innovators and consultancy to SME´s and startups. We think that Almi will be very importent in helping companies to fund investments in current situation.
3- Which are your expectations for the project Going Local?
My expectations are:
1. To benchmark with outer regions
2. Make contacts for eventual future co-operation
3. We run a network with senior officers of industry and trade. My hope is that “Going Local” will give good input to this network.
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VASTMANLAND