Swedes warned of skyrocketing coffee prices

Coffee prices are expected to soar in Sweden this week, warn several shops in their social media.

"All major coffee companies negotiate with the major grocery chains five times a year, so that's various ten-week periods. A new period starts [this] week," Anders Thorén, head of communications for coffee roastery Löfbergs, told Gothenburg newspaper Göteborgs-posten (GP).

One shop warns of price increases of 20 kronor per package, reports GP.

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Swedish number-crunching agency SCB is set to present inflation data for the month of March this week. In February, the price of coffee, tea and cocoa rose 8.8 percent compared to the previous month and 23.5 percent year-on-year.

The reason behind the price increase is the skyrocketing price of green coffee beans on the global market.

Increased demand and small harvests in Brazil after years of drought, as well as the dollar exchange rate, have sent prices soaring. One pound of green coffee beans in January cost $3.2 on the global market, or around 35 kronor for half a kilo – the highest in 50 years.

Swedish vocabulary: coffee – kaffe

Turbulent week ahead for global stock markets as trade war gears up

Stock market turbulence continued on Monday after US President Donald Trump last week announced 10 percent (and more for some countries) baseline tariffs on all imports, prompting China to respond with a retaliatory tariff of 34 percent on all US goods.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 10 percent in early trading. In Shanghai and Shenzen, the composite index fell 6.1 percent and 8.4 percent, while Nikkei 225 and the Topix index in Japan stood at -6.5 percent at lunchtime. South Korea's Kospi index was down 4.6 percent.

Last week, Wall Street and the Stockholm stock exchange alike fell 9 percent. 

Savings experts advised Swedes to hold their breath and wait before selling their stocks or funds. The only situation in which you may want to sell urgently is if you need the money in the next two years, but funds should in any case be reserved for long-term savings.

"Things could turn around and if you're then out of the American market, you'll also miss the recovery," Nordnet's economist Frida Bratt told the TT news agency.

European Union trade ministers are set to meet in Luxembourg on Monday to discuss the EU's response, after Trump slammed 20 percent tariffs on the EU.

Swedish vocabulary: to continue – att fortsätta

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Malmö council staff caught out by fake phishing emails

Malmö municipality with the help of an accountancy firm sent out fake emails to 3,500 council employees to simulate an IT attack. But the plug had to be pulled on the test after a third of the recipients immediately walked right into the trap, reports regional daily Sydsvenskan.

The test had been built as a so-called phishing attack. In a real-life situation, the hackers' goal would be to get the recipients to click a link in the email which would give them access to their log-in details.

Normally, when such a test is carried out, the recipients are given 72 hours to respond. However, this time it was interrupted after 27 hours, after 32 percent of employees – more than 1,121 people – had clicked the link in the email, according to figures received by Sydsvenskan.

That was despite the fact that the municipality's IT support desk, who wasn't aware it was a test, had posted a warning on the intranet. 

The goal of such a test is normally that fewer than five percent of employees will click on the link. The average for Swedish municipalities is 15 percent, according to Sydsvenskan.

Swedish vocabulary: fake – fejk

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The declining number of high-skilled workers coming to Sweden

Sweden's migration minister says he wants to reduce asylum-related immigration at the same time as "attracting more foreign experts, researchers and talent to strengthen Swedish competitiveness". So The Local looked into how the government is actually doing.

Sweden gave out 11,278 new work permits for jobs requiring a university level or advanced university level education in 2024.

That is 2,803 fewer than in 2023 and 4,336 fewer than in 2022, the year towards the end of which government came into power. It is even 2,240 below the number awarded under the Social Democrats in 2021, when Sweden was still emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The number of work permits being renewed has also been in decline.

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Only 18,515 high-skilled workers renewed a work permit in 2024, 2,260 fewer than did so in 2023.

As a proportion of total work permits awarded, however, the share high-skilled workers took of the total permits awarded rose in 2024 from 68 percent to 84 percent, as a result of an even sharper fall in the number of low-skilled workers coming to Sweden.

In the first two months of 2025, the share of permits taken by high-skilled workers has risen still higher to 87 percent.

"I'm pleased to see that the rate of high-skilled work permits last year compared to the low-skilled ones has increased. So there are obviously still some challenges ahead of us, but I think we're on the right path," Migration Minister Johan Forssell told The Local last week.

Swedish vocabulary: a work permit – ett arbetstillstånd