A new forecast by Sweden’s National Public Employment Agency predicts that more than 500,000 Swedes will be unemployed by 2010. The agency expects the unemployment rate in Sweden to jump from its 6.1 percent level in 2008 to 11 percent in 2010.
The Local newspaper reports that the crisis will affect young people worst and it will be spread across the entire social and labour market. This gloomy outlook didn’t surprise Agency director-general Angeles Bermudez Svankvist. Speaking to the news agency TT, she said: “We have to remember that the crisis is not a Swedish creation. But we at the Agency have to gather our resources and meet the crisis.”
Around 250,000 Swedish jobs will be terminated in the coming year as global demand for manufacturing and services continues to decline. Sweden’s Finance Minister Anders Borg shares the view of his compatriots in the Employment Agency. In a recent statement, Anders Borg said he predicts unemployment will top 12 percent by 2011.
[…] Half a million Swedes unemployed by 2010 […]