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Angry job-seekers had to be dispersed by police in Sweden after a gaffe saw 61,000 people invited to a ‘recruitment meeting’.
An e-mail asking job-seekers to attend the meeting in Stockholm was meant to be sent to around 1,000, officials said.
But instead it was sent to all the registered job-seekers in the city.
Sweden's jobs agency invites, um, 61,000 people to the same meeting. Chaos ensues http://t.co/JGiuZgLf7W pic.twitter.com/TyiG6p8PvZ
— Richard Milne (@rmilneNordic) February 26, 2014
It saw hundreds descend on the employment office, spilling out onto an adjacent street, a main thoroughfare running through the city centre.
Clas Olsson, acting director of the employment office, said: “Something has gone wrong with the mailing list… it has set off a very messy situation at the city office.”
Emotions were running high and office staff sounded the alarm, bringing police to the scene.
“When we got there it was very crowded and there were some upset feelings,” Police Inspector Ulf Lindgren told Reuters.
Olsson told the Aftonbladet newspaper he did not know if the cause was a human or technical error.
Sweden’s total unemployment stood at 8.6 per cent in January.