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Business leaders demand pay freeze

Published: 26 May 09 08:42 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/19664/20090526/

Swedish business leaders have demanded a pay freeze, lower pay for young people, more flexible employment regulations and local variations in collective agreements.

"The best way to secure jobs in a recession, and therefore the possibilities for a sustainable development of pay levels is to suspend pay rises and pay distribution in the central collective agreements," write the CEOs for the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, the Association of Swedish Engineering Industries, Almega, Svensk Handel and the Swedish Construction Federation in a debate article in Dagens Nyheter on Tuesday.

The business leaders also demand lower pay for young people to cut youth unemployment and more flexible terms of employment protection legislation (Lagen om anställningsskydd - LAS).

"Europe's second largest youth unemployment levels are a stain on Sweden. The increase in the lowest levels of pay secured in 2007 have been a real Pyrrhic victory for the unions," they write.

They argue that the changes are required to adapt labour to demand and enable companies to compensate employees with time off during recessions.

"In several other countries companies can make use of partially state-financed systems to adapt labour to demand. We can not do so in Sweden, which places high demands on other alternatives to quickly adapt to local agreements which can nurse the company through a temporary downturn," the seven CEOs write.

The CEO's conclude with an appeal to union heads "not to inflate expectations which can not be fulfilled in the 2010 collective agreement negotiations."

TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)

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14:39 May 26, 2009 by BCR
How about lowering income taxes instead? Or removing the "employment tax" that companies are required to pay in Sweden?

In order to become competitive, Sweden will need to drastically reconsider the welfare system that its' 9 million inhabitants are required to support, and decide whether or not they really need their own military to subsidise Swedish arms manufacturers, etc...
09:45 May 27, 2009 by Playmaker
Hey lets not forget the cost of taking in the most refugees in the westen world. All cost ass. with having them. Helthcare, Police, Fire, Schools, free rent and food. Sweden needs money and to stabilize itself before it can help others.
10:57 May 27, 2009 by RoyceD
How about all country's form a proper system of money that does not cripple most the worlds population, so inflation becomes a thing of the past?
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