STOCKHOLM - SWEDISH furniture giant Ikea, which recently axed 5,000 jobs, will make further cuts to cope with falling demand for its products, company founder Ingvar Kamprad was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

'We need to reduce our personnel further especially within manufacturing and logistics,' the billionaire told Swedish business daily Dagens Industri, without saying how many jobs would go and which countries would be affected.

Mr Kamprad, who is 83 and set up Ikea in 1943 as a teenager, explained sales were 7 per cent below what the company had budgeted for.

'That corresponds to 8 billion kronor (S$1.5 billion) on an annual basis which we have to adjust to,' he was quoted as saying.

Mr Kamprad, who now lives in tax exile in Switzerland, also said the company would hire a few thousand people to work at its 14 new stores planned to open worldwide this year.

Ikea is an unlisted, privately-owned company and therefore does not release regular earnings reports, but outgoing managing director Anders Dahlvig has said it expects sales of 21.5 billion euros excluding currency effects for its fiscal year ending August 31. -- AFP