Ingvar Kamprad tells Swedish newspaper that even the 5,000 redundancies the furniture retailer has already made will not be enough

The founder of Ikea has warned that the Swedish retailer must cut more staff after finding that sales of flat-pack furniture were not immune from the recession.

Ingvar Kamprad believes that the 5,000 jobs that Ikea has already shed from its workforce will not be enough to bring the company in line with the tougher economic climate.

“We need to decrease the number of staff further, particularly within manufacturing and logistics,” Kamprad told Swedish newspaper Daily Industry. “It’s both about adjusting to sales being a lot less than budgeted, and about becoming more efficient.”

The Swedish billionaire revealed that sales at Ikea are currently running around 7% below its target, adding that the company can no longer match its rapid expansion of recent times, when up to 20 new stores would open every year.

“The forecast is that our margins and profits are decreasing substantially this year. This is proof that we have been too negligent in how we take care of our existing stores. Actually, I have long tried to warn about our excessive focus on expansion, and now the board has also decided to hit the brakes,” Kamprad said.

A spokeswoman confirmed that there may be further job cuts at Ikea, but insisted that the company was also hiring at its new stores. She added that the company was still committed to opening between 10 and 15 stores a year, despite the recession.

“Turnover has decreased because of the current economic situation. We have to look at our costs, but we are still doing very well, generating good profits – but we had counted on doing better than we are doing today,” she said.

Kamprad founded Ikea in 1943 and still advises the company, which posted record global sales of €21.2bn (£18bn) in the last financial year.

But its seemingly relentless expansion hit a roadblock last month when it suspended its investment in Russia, which had been a major target for Ikea this decade. It blamed the “unpredictability of administrative processes” in the country.

Analysts said the move showed that Ikea had lost patience with being asked for bribes by corrupt Russian officials. They pointed out that a new Ikea store in the city of Samara was completed a year ago but has still not been given permission to open until the firm has paid to fix alleged “deficiencies” with the building.

Kamprad said he supported the decision to postpone building up to 30 more stores in Russia. “Hopefully we can restart the offensive later on, and in the long term I’m convinced that Russia will be a good market for Ikea,” says Kamprad.

The popularity of Ikea has prompted a Swedish museum to host an exhibit looking back at its history, including early tables, chairs and advertising material.