Latest news with #SecurityandDefenceIndustriesAssociationofEurope
Business Insider
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Study AI if you want to get hired in the defense industry, the CEO of Scandinavia's biggest military manufacturer says
Artificial intelligence and software skills will be a young graduate's best bets for a job in the rapidly surging defense industry, said Micael Johansson, CEO of Saab. "I think there will be a big change going forward," Johansson told Business Insider on the sidelines of this year's Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. "Our systems will be software-defined, so of course, AI engineers, great software skills, data engineers will be super important to us," said the CEO, who was elected president of the Aerospace, Security and Defence Industries Association of Europe last month. Johansson said defense primes like Saab, which manufactures the Gripen fighter aircraft, will still need technicians and mechanics to build weapons platforms. "We need excellent, skillful production people as well. Finding welders to do submarine work is not an easy thing, so it's a mix of jobs," he said. But he added that Saab and the larger industry are moving toward a live service business model that emphasizes software in weapons systems that can be incrementally updated and connected with other platforms. Part of that industry push comes from observing the war in Ukraine, where both sides are developing new techniques in drone jamming and countermeasures in a matter of weeks. "The technology will grow so quickly, so you cannot buy a sort of, 50,000 drones and put them in stock. You want to have almost like drones as a service," Johansson said. Saab, the Nordics' biggest defense manufacturer, has enjoyed an industry-wide boom since the start of the Ukraine war. The Swedish firm reported 2024 annual sales of 63.75 billion Swedish krona, or about $6.6 billion. By comparison, annual revenue in 2021 was 39.15 billion krona. Amid the uncertainty of Washington's long-term role in NATO, the firm's share price has surged by more than 120% since President Donald Trump's inauguration in January to 484.30 krona, as of Monday afternoon. Johansson said Saab has been investing heavily to meet demand and has grown its workforce from 19,000 to 25,000 in the last two years. "We've had more than 200,000 applicants last year for the company and 74,000 for this first quarter," he said. The CEO had said in February that he expected the Stockholm-based firm to hire 1,000 more people in Sweden this year. On Friday, he told BI he'd revised the figure to 2,000 after realizing Saab had already hired 900 new staff in the first quarter. "Probably will be wrong again," he said.
Business Insider
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Europe might be increasing its defense spending, but it's moving way too slowly to be ready for Russia, says Saab CEO
Saab's CEO Micael Johansson said that while Europe's leaders have announced huge defense spending hikes, the continent's processes are likely too slow to combat Russia. "Now, we want to spend like 3.5% to 5% of GDP on defense. But then, when you start getting into the normal processes in terms of, okay, defense forces have to decide what to spend the money on, and then it has to be acquired by someone," Johansson told Business Insider on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue. "The process is much too long still. It takes a long time before it gets into industry," he said, adding that he was worried about the gap. As an example, Johansson said Sweden's recent boost in defense spending to 3.5% of GDP would take military authorities "six months roughly" to decide what to spend the funds on. And that's before acquisition and matériel officials come into the mix, he said. "And so we're still looking at a couple of years before you actually get going, which is not good enough, I think, in times of war. Which is tragic," Johansson said, who was elected president of the Aerospace, Security and Defence Industries Association of Europe last month. At the same time, the CEO raised concerns about Russia's warfooting manufacturing capability, estimating that Moscow was making up about five times as many artillery shells as all of Europe yearly. "Europe has to take its own responsibility, so we need to have integrated our missile defense systems, the collaborative combat aircraft, we need to have space technology, we need to have hubs where we can do ammunition manufacturing," he said. At the Dialogue, which ran from Friday to Sunday, Germany's defense chief Gen. Carsten Breuer raised a similar issue for his country. "I think in Germany we are a facing a situation, or at least we faced a situation, where we had processes over processes and processes, and all those processes were developed not to spend any money," Breuer said at a panel on Saturday. "Because we had enough time, but we did not have the money." Breuer said that if German officials deemed a process was moving too quickly, they would "then develop an additional process to slow it down." European military officials have warned that their nations must be ready for a possible conflict with Russia by 2029, when they estimate that Moscow would be strong enough to launch an attack on the Baltic states. Anxieties on the continent have been compounded by the second Trump administration's signaled reluctance to continue supporting regional defense in areas where European states are falling short. President Donald Trump has called for NATO's European members to boost defense spending to 5% of their GDP. Some, such as Germany, have signaled an openness to such an eventual arrangement. Saab, which manufactures the Gripen fighter jet that's geared toward fighting Russian threats, has seen a rapid surge in demand since the war in Ukraine began in 2022. The Nordics' biggest defense manufacturer reported 2024 annual sales of 63.75 billion Swedish krona, or about $6.6 billion. By comparison, annual revenue in 2021 was 39.15 billion krona.
