At the end of November, 207,000 people, or 4.3 percent of the workforce, were registered as out of work with Sweden’s National Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen).

The figure represents a drop of 38,000 people, or 0.9 percent of the workforce, compared with the same month last year.

At the same time, the agency listed 48,000 job vacancies in November, a jump of 19,000 from a year ago.

During November, 191,000 people, or 4 percent of the workforce, participated in employment support programmes, an increase of 36,000 people or 0.7 percent from November of last year.

The number of people who received redundancy notices in November dropped to 3,100 from 4,700 last year.

November marked the first month since August 2008 there had been a year-on-year decrease in the total number of Swedes registered as out of work or participating in employment support programmes.

At the same time, employers are advertising more jobs, more Swedes are working, and fewer workers have received layoff notices.

“Now there are least five different signs indicating that things are going in the right direction in the labour market,” said Lena Liljebäck, deputy director of the National Public Employment Service, to the TT news agency.

However, the number of long-term unemployed Swedes registered in specially designed employment retraining programmes continued to rise.

Foreign-born and low-educated educated workers, as well as people with disabilities, are overrepresented in the programmes.

“This is a ground we’re working very hard with and prioritising. But as the labour market improves, we expect the situation to also improve for the long-term unemployed, especially young people,” said Liljebäck.

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