UPDATE 2-Husqvarna's restructuring costs gives widening Q4 operating loss

(Adds comment)

STOCKHOLM, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Sweden's Husqvarna reported on Wednesday a much bigger fourth-quarter operating loss than a year ago and proposed an unchanged dividend.

Operating loss at the world's biggest maker of gardening power tools was 1.74 billion Swedish crowns ($166.86 million against a year-earlier loss of 132 million.

Adjusted for items affecting comparability, mainly restructuring costs, the operating loss however shrank, to 13 million crowns from a year-earlier 180 million loss, helped by an organic sales growth of 8%.

"Price increases compensated for higher raw material and logistic costs, while lower volumes, especially for residential robotic mowers and watering products, had a negative impact," interim chief executive Pavel Hajman said in a statement.

The fourth quarter is seasonally a weak period for the gardening equipment maker which does the bulk of its business towards the end of the first quarter and in the second, ahead of and during the peak gardening season in the northern hemisphere.

In connection with its third-quarter report the Swedish company announced it would cut 1,000 jobs and restructure its business away from petrol-powered consumer products after Husqvarna reported a 40% drop in its quarterly earnings.

The company proposed a dividend of 3.00 crowns per share for 2022, unchanged from a year ago. (Reporting by Marie Mannes, editing by Anna Ringstrom and Louise Heavens)