The survey is based on responses from 217 companies in Jönköping County. The forecasts for sales, production, investments and employment plans for the coming six months now look significantly brighter than before.

Among the county's companies, half believe in increased sales, almost 4 out of 10 in increased investments and 3 out of 10 in more employees in six months.

- Probably the increased faith in the future and optimism is based on the vaccination program keeping what is promised and that current restrictions can then be gradually lifted.

Therefore, it is extremely important, both for the business community and all their employees, that Sweden does not lag behind in this area, says Anna Gillek, regional manager at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise in a press release.

Critical for some industries

But there are also some gloomy figures.

38 percent of companies have lower sales or production compared with six months ago.

This is despite the fact that the economic situation was already at low levels.

When it comes to investments such as the number of employees, many companies have pulled the handbrake.

A large proportion have now had to further reduce their investment rate and reduce their workforce compared with six months ago.

In the clip below, you hear Sara and Emma who work as hairdressers Aneby talk about how the corona restrictions have affected their company.

Javascript is disabled

Javascript must be turned on to play video

Read more about browser support

The browser is not supported

SVT does not support playback in your browser.

We therefore recommend that you switch to another browser.

Read more about browser support

Sara and Emma run a hair salon that is a sole proprietorship, see a piece of their everyday life in the clip above.

Photo: Simon Fredling Jack, SVT