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UNEMPLOYMENT

Moderates pledge billions for unemployed

Fredrik Reinfeldt's Moderate Party wants to spend 3 billion kronor ($410 million) over the next three years on job coaching, work experience and training, creating over 31,000 new opportunities in 2011 and 2012, according to party estimates.

Moderates pledge billions for unemployed
Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt

“It is now the right time to expand the volumes,” Reinfeldt said during a campaign stop in Norrköping.

The investment is temporary for the next two years with a focus on 2011. The package involves the creation of 6,000 extra work experience placements, 13,300 job coaching places and 1,000 more opportunities in folk high schools.

Around 2,000 unemployed young people are to be offered higher study grants in order to tempt them to complete their studies at Komvux adult education schools.

The Moderates also want to reinforce the employment support provision for the long term unemployed, so that the ceiling for remuneration to employers is lifted from 750 kronor to 890 kronor per day up to 85 percent of wage costs. At the same time the qualification for those to be employed under the scheme would be raised from 14 months to 24 months of unemployment.

The investment is budgeted to cost a total of 1.4 billion kronor and cover 6,000 people in 2011 and 2012.

The Moderates also want to change the conditions for young people to qualify for the youth jobs guarantee. Currently the requirement is three consecutive months of unemployment and would be changed to an accumulated three months in a four month period to enable young people to accept short-term temporary jobs.

The entire package, which is yet to be negotiated with the Moderates’ three coalition parties, covers 31,000 places and is budgeted to cost 3 billion kronor.

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EUROPEAN UNION

Sweden heads for economic slowdown EU warns

The European Union has warned that Sweden's economy is facing a marked slowdown, with unemployment set to rise above seven percent as companies cut back on investment.

Sweden heads for economic slowdown EU warns
Jobseekers entering an office of the Swedish Public Employment Service back in 2016, when the economy was booming. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT
The August 2019 economic forecast from the European Commission's Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs sees the rate of growth of Sweden's real GDP dropping to one percent next year.
 
This is slower than what is expected for all but four of the other 28 European Union members, and well below the brisk  four percent rate the country enjoyed back in 2015. 
 
“Sweden’s economy is clearly slowing down. Domestic demand and investment in particular are weak,” the report read, blaming the insipid domestic demand on a decline in investment in the housing market following years of strong growth. 
 
The slowing economy had also pushed Swedish manufacturers to hold back on investments in equipment, exacerbating the decline. 
 
The authors pointed out that planned government spending would do little to pick up the slack. 
 
“In spite of sizeable spending needs for schools, health care and welfare services linked to demographic developments, general government consumption is set to moderate in 2019 and 2020,” the report read. 
 
“Costs linked to migration should decrease, whereas new defence and health care expenses, priorities of the 2019 budget, are partially compensated by cutbacks on, among other items, labour market and environmental measures.” 
 
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While the report predicted that growth would start to pick up again in 2021, it warned that this recovery could be knocked off course by bad news internationally. 
 
“As the Swedish business cycle is closely aligned to that of its main trading partners, a deterioration of the external environment would weigh on the export sector,” it read. 
 
Real GDP in Germany and Belgium was also predicted to grow by just 1 percent in 2020, while Italy was expected to see a still more anaemic 0.04 percent growth rate. Every other EU country was predicted to grow faster, with Romania seeing the fastest growth at 3.6 percent. 
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