One of Metro's two companies, Tidnings AB Metro terminates 20 employees and retains four services in the company, writes the Journalisten. The assignment comes from the journalist association's local club chairman Åsa Larsson.

Some of those who are laid off will be offered jobs in other companies owned by the investment company Custos. In 2017, financier Mats Qviberg sold his entire holding in Custos to Christen Ager-Hanssen for a penny.

Negotiations between unions and employers have ended in disagreement.

- This is a terrible tear-up, it is friends and colleagues who are dismissed from an editorial that has fought so hard over the years. We have fought for the newspaper, for journalism and for each other, and now this community and the workplace is being broken, says Åsa Larsson to the Journalist.

More lifestyle

Christen Ager-Hanssen tells the Culture News that he has not made the decision on the dismissals, but that he has recommended the board of Tidnings AB Metro to resign.

- I think the fixed cost does not have the flexibility to control the content properly. I think you can keep the costs down by not having editors and having freelancers and buying content and not being locked in a lot of agreements, he says.

Is Metro still a journalistic product?

- The journalistic product Metro, after all, has not been the most prominent part of Metro. Metro has been progressively more and more towards a little deeper explanations and more towards the lifestyle, he says, adding:

- First and foremost, today it is a network product that has an ambition to engage.

The cultural news is looking for Åsa Larsson.