In the wake of an economic downturn, society's most ruthless mechanisms are laid bare. It's not the executives who are let go. Nor the middle managers with their spacious offices and bonus packages. No, it’s the low-paid workers. Those who uphold production, sweating in small workshops, pressing metal, packing goods, or standing at assembly lines. They are the first to go. Led to the slaughter like livestock, just so the highly paid can remain. And our silence about this is deafening.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the industrial sector. Unemployment is rising, and it’s primarily the old bulls and boars who are culled first. Men with 25, 30, even 40 years of experience. Those who truly understand how the machines work, who stayed when others left. But now, they are suddenly worth nothing. They cost too much, they say. They are "heavy in operation." It's called "restructuring," as if it were a law of nature. But this is nothing more than the selective slaughter of the working class.
Why does this happen? Why are the lowest-paid the first to go when the economy falters? Wouldn’t it be more logical to cut from the top, where costs are highest? Yes, but logic has nothing to do with it. This is about structure, power, and hierarchy.
Power resides higher up the pyramid. Those making the layoff decisions belong to the same high-income bracket. There is both a psychological and strategic resistance to cutting their own. It’s easier to look down and point at an anonymous mass of "production staff" and say: that’s where the waste is.
And then comes the logic of replaceability. Low-paid workers are often seen as interchangeable. An operator can be replaced with a new one. A warehouse worker can be hired through an agency. That’s the thinking. But what’s forgotten is the experience and tacit knowledge that disappears when you knock the legs out from under a 58-year-old welder. Production may not feel it the first week. But after a few months, issues emerge. Small errors start to happen. Troubleshooting takes longer. The experience is gone.
In theory, unions and seniority rules are there to protect long-term employees. But in practice, employers find loopholes. By restructuring departments, rewriting job descriptions, or citing "specific skills," it is often possible to circumvent Sweden's Employment Protection Act (LAS). The result? Older, quieter workers are the first to go. Again.
Meanwhile, a new class society is emerging. One where low-income workers lack voice and influence, while high-earners stay in place, even with failed projects, poor results, and unclear leadership. It’s no longer about merit. It’s about position.
And amid all this, unions have lost their power. Once a unifying force for solidarity, a voice for the weak, a counterweight to capital—today, they often appear toothless. Their negotiating power has eroded, membership is declining, and trust is at historic lows. For many workers, it feels like unions no longer defend their reality. Instead, they’ve become just another institution, tied to the very system they once aimed to challenge. The silent acceptance of mass layoffs, without a fight, is a betrayal.
In industry, terms like "transition packages" are used to soften the process. It sounds humane. As if it’s about help, not exclusion. But in reality, it’s often about pushing out the oldest, most experienced workers. Severance deals, early retirement negotiations, "voluntary" transfers. But it’s not always as voluntary as it sounds.
Many of these people head into spring without work, without identity, without a future. Their hands built our society, but when recession hits, they are seen as costs. As ballast.
The statistics confirm the picture. Unemployment in Sweden reached 8.4% in 2024, up from 7.7% the previous year. That’s nearly half a million people without jobs. Foreign-born workers were especially hard hit, with 12.6% unemployment compared to 3.3% among native Swedes. Among youth aged 15–24, unemployment rose to a staggering 23.6%.
In the welfare sector, layoffs increased by 151% in the second quarter of 2024 compared to the same period the year before. A total of 866 people were let go due to lack of work—childcare workers, classroom assistants, healthcare staff.
Meanwhile, unions lost ground. The Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) lost over 20,000 members in 2024 alone. Among the hardest hit were Kommunal, IF Metall, and GS-facket. Today, only 58% of blue-collar workers in Sweden are unionized, compared to 73% of white-collar workers—the largest gap in organizing rates in Swedish history. The unions’ ability to act as a real counterforce to employers’ power has thus been severely weakened.
What does this say about us as a society? How we treat our most loyal workers reveals our true values. We talk about "lifelong learning" and an "inclusive workforce," but when the economy shrinks, these words ring hollow.
We could have chosen another path. One where experience is valued, seen as an asset, not a cost. One where we cut from the top, not the roots. One where we build stronger organizations by retaining those who carry the knowledge. But that’s not the path we take. Instead, we rationalize away those who actually get the job done.
An experienced machine operator can hear when something’s about to break. They know to wait half a second before pulling the lever to make the machine run smoother. That kind of knowledge isn’t in manuals. You can’t read it. But it’s said to be too expensive.
This "costs"-thinking is dangerous. It risks eroding our entire production capacity, our transfer of knowledge, our work culture. What happens when no one knows how to adjust the machine without shutting down the whole line? What happens when we’ve removed everyone who knew how to fix, tweak, and improvise?
This isn’t just an industrial problem. The same logic exists in healthcare, education, transport, and retail. Those closest to the floor, working shifts, running on short-term contracts—they’re the first to go. And they’re often women, immigrants, older workers. Those already on the margins of working life. They’re the ones we slaughter first when profits fall.
But people are not livestock. They’re not waste. They are knowledge bearers, culture bearers, role models. They are the foundation of all production and development. And when we sacrifice them to protect positions higher up the hierarchy, we sell out the future for a short-term spreadsheet.
We need to talk about this. Loudly. We need to stop accepting so-called "logical" cutbacks and start demanding fairness. Fair working conditions, fair priorities, fair respect for those who have carried—and still carry—our society.
Because otherwise, it’s not just the old bulls who are slaughtered. It’s our shared dignity.
By Chris...
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