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Unemployment rises again

The Local Sweden
The Local Sweden - [email protected]
Unemployment rises again

The number of people out of work in Sweden in rose again last month to 263,000, or 5.5 percent of the workforce, according to the Swedish National Labour Market Administration (AMS).

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This figure rose to 7.8 percent when people on welfare to work programmes were counted as jobless, representing a rise of 0.2 percent on August 2004.

Unemployment was also up in August compared with July, but according to AMS this is normal for the time of year. Seasonally adjusted figures showed that unemployment had stopped rising and “has started to head gently downwards,” the organisation said.

“I can see weak signs of an improvement in the job market,” said Bo Bylund, head of AMS, in a statement.

“The number of job vacancies is continuing to increase in most sectors, and redundancies are heading downwards.”

Bylund pointed out that 8,000 more jobs were advertised last month than in August 2004.

With 5.7 percent of its workforce unemployed or on labour market programmes, Stockholm was the region that fared best in the report. Jönköping, in southern Sweden, was next, with 5.8 percent.

Most new jobs were created in professional services, such as IT consultancy, accounting and marketing.

Will unemployment fall? Discuss here!

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