- It is a very serious situation where the barns are empty and we will survive the summer, says Skubla.

A tough summer awaits the country's taxi operators. During normal years, most people in the industry build up a buffer for the summer when the runs are significantly fewer. This applies not least when the driving of the elderly, the disabled and school children for the most part disappears during the summer. After already losing between 80 and 90 percent of revenues during the spring, the summer will therefore mean great financial strains for many of Sweden's 7,500 taxi companies.

- It's about being able to support one's family, it's about food on the table, says Skubla, who adds that many entrepreneurs have done what they could to keep their companies alive, for example by mortgaging houses and flats or by borrowing money from Friends and familiars.

But it does not work for very long and many companies therefore risk not surviving the summer. 

- Towards the autumn, we will surely see a lot of personal tragedies.

Government support no help

During the spring, the government presented a number of different support packages for business and entrepreneurs, including a restructuring support where the state bears part of the company's fixed costs. But taxi is an industry with many small individual companies where salary, unlike limited companies, is not counted as a fixed cost. 

The taxi association would rather have a sales support, ie a compensation for lost revenue. The union has also courted the government, including Minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson, but so far without results. Claudio Skubla hopes that the government will return with new measures. But it's in a hurry.

- I really hope that they do not take a holiday but work actively to get a good solution so that the taxi industry can survive the summer, he says.

The countryside is worst affected

Should many taxi companies collapse, it is, as so often, the countryside that is hardest hit. According to Skubla, it is known from experience that closed taxi companies outside the metropolitan areas are rarely reimbursed, which hits the community service hard, not least for the elderly and the disabled.

- Then old grandmother can take a black taxi instead, says Claudio Skubla.