A lot has been said about Sweden’s budget, as hints of what it will contain came out in dribs and drabs. It’s been talked about in this blog here, here, here and here. Here, and here too. But the guessing is over – the budget came out today.
Most of what had earlier been leaked came true, although the numbers sometimes took a hit. One thing that hasn’t been talked about so much in advance is the jobs package. We have now learned that the government, the Social Democratic party and the Green party, and its supporting cast of the Center and Liberal parties, have put together a packet of job-related measures expected to cost 1.3 billion kronor.
The jobs package is an umbrella term for measures that aim to increase employment and employability. Latest unemployment figures show an increase of a full percent, to 7.1% unemployed in August. This is 56,000 fewer people than were employed at this time last year. Sysselsättningsgraden – how many people were employed for at least one hour during the measured week – was 68.3% in August (bit.ly/EkonomifaktaSysselsättning). The buzz is that an economic downturn is on the horizon, and these numbers aren’t encouraging.
Of the 1.3 billion kronor, the biggest outlay is for paying for extra services and introductory jobs (extratjänster och introduktionsjobb). Extra service jobs are jobs mostly in the service sector and are directed to long-term unemployed and newly arrived immigrants. Introductory jobs are largely the same but are private-company based. The government pays the employer to employ someone, and that person in turn receives a regular job-commensurate salary. The government basically tries to make it easier and economically advantageous to hire people who would not normally be very sought after. About 427 million kronor has been designated for this effort, and 2,200 people are expected to benefit from it ( http://bit.ly/AftonbladetJObbpaket).
Another outlay goes to labor market training programs, in which a job seeker receives training for a specific field or job that the Employment Service (Arbetsförmedling) thinks they’re suited for and in which there is a need for workers. Bus drivers, truckers and even excavator operators are named as occupations that need filling (http://bit.ly/AftonbladetJObbpaket).
Another financial injection has been designated for “education lifts” (kunskapslyft). In this case, 281 millions kronor is earmarked for the further education of adults who have some education behind them but who need more to better meet job market requirements. Another example is funding the pedagogical education for adults who have job experience behind them but who need the extra education to become qualified teachers. 1000 people are expected to be helped by this measure (http://bit.ly/AftonbladetJObbpaket).
The jobs package budget proposal will be replacing funds that the current Moderate and Christian Democratic budget cut back last spring. These programs were cut because they were generally considered ineffective – more people did not find jobs after having gone through these programs than if they hadn’t. But now these programs are back, in basically unchanged form.