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In Stats: How many people are currently unemployed in Sweden

The Local Sweden
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In Stats: How many people are currently unemployed in Sweden
More people are unemployed in Sweden. Photo: Stina Stjernkvist/TT

Unemployment has been on the increase in Sweden during the pandemic, but there are signs of light on the horizon, new figures suggest.

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A total of 475,000 people were registered as unemployed at Sweden's national employment agency Arbetsförmedlingen at the end of August, according to the agency's new data released on Monday.

That's around 126,000 people more than the same month last year, and means that unemployment in Sweden has risen from 7 percent to 9.1 percent in a year – fuelled by the coronavirus pandemic.

Of the total unemployment figures, around 250,000 people were born abroad (up from 202,000 last year) and of those almost 199,000 were born outside of Europe (up from 165,000). Unemployment among Swedish-born people increased from 148,000 to more than 225,000 in the same period.

This means that in late August, the unemployment rate among foreign-born people stood at 21.5 percent, and 5.6 percent among Swedish-born people (up from 19.2 and 3.7 percent, respectively).

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There are signs of the job market slowly coming back to life.

In August almost 36,000 of everyone registered with Arbetsförmedlingen started a new job, almost 9,000 more than in August last year. Of those, 29,000 were previously registered as unemployed.

Among young people (for whom unemployment grew from 8.9 percent last August, to 13.3 percent this year) the figure was even more promising. Almost twice as many started a new job in August compared to the same month last year, and 9,000 started university (up from 5,000 last year).

Sweden's economy is currently going through one of its worst crises in recent years, although the overall situation is not as bad as initially feared, with the economy expected to start bouncing back in the second half of 2020.

But as The Local has previously reported, those in long-term unemployment are hit the hardest, and the figure continues to rise. At the end of August 168,000 people had been without a job for more than 12 months. That's 23,000 more than the same period last year, and 3,000 more than last month.

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