Insignificant increase in foreign ownership

Foreign control of enterprises increased in Sweden with 28 enterprises in 2012. After the increase there are 14,069 foreign controlled enterprises in Sweden. The number of employ­ees in the foreign controlled enterprises increased with 8,326 persons, which was an increase with 1 percent compared to last year’s survey. This meant that there were 639,340 employ­ees in foreign controlled enterprises in Sweden in 2012.

Danish ownership decreases

Denmark was the country that accounted for the largest decrease of foreign controlled enterprises in Sweden between 2011 and 2012 with a decrease of 118 enterprises; the second largest decrease was the UK with 77 companies. There were also a number of countries that increased its ownership in Sweden as Luxembourg (42 enterprises), Guernsey (39 enterprises) and Germany (36 enterprises).

Norway is the country that controls the largest number of enterprises in Sweden (2,241 enter­prises), followed by Denmark (1,340 enterprises) and the U.S. (1,323 enterprises). The single largest country in terms of number of employees is the United States with its 71,904 employees, followed by Germany and Finland with 71 758 and 61 341 employees.

Most enterprises in the service sector

Of all foreign controlled enterprises 79 per cent belonged to the service sector and 10 per­cent to the manufacturing industry in 2012. 63 per cent of all employees in foreign controlled enterprises were employed in the services sector, 32 percent in the manufacturing industry, and 4 percent in the construction industry.

A few large enterprises provide most employment

Of the foreign controlled enterprises in 2012, 87 percent were small with fewer than 50 employees in Sweden. These enterprises, however, accounted only for 12 per cent of employees in foreign controlled enterprises. Large enterprises with 250 or more employees accounted for 3 per cent of all foreign controlled enterprises, but their share of employment was 67 per cent of all employees in foreign controlled enterprises. This has remained largely unchanged compared to previous years.

The smaller foreign controlled enterprises had a larger proportion of their employees within the service sector compared to the large foreign controlled enterprises, which were more evenly distributed between manufacturing industry and the service sector.