Thousands of people called to the same meeting at Stockholm job office by mistake

Police were called to disperse the crowd after an email about a recruitment meeting was sent to 61,000 people

Job-seekers congregate outside the Swedish job centre (Reuters)

Chaos ensued outside a Swedish employment office on Wednesday after it accidentally called 61,000 people to a recruitment meeting.

"Something has gone wrong with the mailing list...it has set off a very messy situation at the city office," said Clas Olsson, acting director of the job centre in central Stockholm.

Police were called to disperse an angry crowd of job-seekers after an email call for a recruitment meeting that should have gone out to about 1,000 people was instead sent to around 61,000 - apparently all the registered job seekers in Stockholm, police said.

Hundreds of people expecting to attend crowded into the alley where the labour office is located and spilled into the adjacent street, a main thoroughfare running through downtown Stockholm.

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.

Additional reporting by Reuters