“If you ask me how the situation will look many years from now, I'd say I was worried," Rune told The Local.
"Employment in the industrial sector is declining, and that is because of the costs. We (Teknikföretagen) and our partners in the labour market have made complaints to the Swedish Riksbank, which has for a long time held steering rates high above those of the euro, further strengthening the Swedish krona. This makes it hard to compete."
The krona's value dropped during the financial crisis in 2009, but has climbed since then, particularly against the euro. The krona rose 8.8 percent in value against the euro between 2011 and 2012, and climbed another 0.7 percent in 2013.
Niklas Hjert, head of negotiations at Unionen, one of Sweden's largest labour unions, agreed that the strength of the krona is a significant contributing factor to high labour costs in the country.
"Labour costs are of course something that we look at very closely when negotiating," Hjert told The Local. "In our last round of general negotiations in 2013 we didn't ask for very high wage increases because we took labour costs into consideration. But we could not foresee how the krona would continue to strengthen. It's actually quite unusual. Sweden is a small country and usually the krona weakens during rough periods."
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