The daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) writes that increased demand from China, India and other emerging economies is the main reason for the boom.
During just the next 4-5 years; 5000 new jobs is expected in the Swedish mining industry. Most of them in the very north of the country. One job in the mining industry is furthermore said to create two other jobs, so it could be a total of 15 000 new jobs just in a few years. But it doesn’t stop there. Pajala, for example, is a small (considering population) municipality with a very high average age and a high out-migration. They now believe they will grow from 6000 inhabitants today to 10 000 by 2020.
There is a problem though, and it is not a kind of problem the region is used to. It will be a very big shortage of housing. This has already become a problem in some of the northern cities. Stefan Hämäläinen at Kiruna municipality office said to SvD:
“We have to solve this problem very soon. We have a couple of hundred publically owned apartments coming up. But other actors like (the mining company) LKAB must also take its responsibility”
Read also about Stockholm News' visit to the mine in Kiruna in 2010.