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Political Economy

The Swedish government criticises the opposition's lowest unemployment calls. "How can they achieve that," Borg ponders.

Thursday, 04 April 2013
The Swedish government via its finance minister, Anders Borg has criticised the opposition, Social Democrats for making a very bold and "unrealistic" statement that they have an approach to make Sweden have the lowest unemployment in Europe.

Being an authority which also made an unrealistic unemployment goal some three years ago, which during their election campaign, Borg and his party promised to bring down the Swedish unemployment rate to 5 or 4 percent, and which has not be realised, the finance minister knows that the Social Democrats are likely talking politics that realism.

When the Social Democrats said a few days ago that they would make Sweden hold the lowest unemployment rate in the EU within six years, Ander Borg feels that such promises are not credible, and to reach the target, Socialists forced would have to expel people from the labour market - in various such emigration or early retirement.
Imag>>Swedish Television<<
At a press conference held today, Swedish Finance Minister, Anders Borg (pictured above) said that
"In order to reach this goal it will requires a very strong employment growth in the coming years, and then one ask the question of how it will happen. In essence Social Democratic policy, with higher taxes and subsidies, will not lead to lower employment, "he said.

Anders Borg questioned how realistic such a goal would be, given that sharp increase in employment would be required to achieve it.

An example to the Social Democrats target is Austria, which is today having EU's lowest unemployment rate of 4.3 percent in 2012. Should Sweden want to reach or beat that Austrian level means that Swedish unemployment must be reduced by 200,000 people in six years. Since the labour force will increase in the future so the government estimate that employment will increased by 300,000 people. How the will unemployment fall to their goal worries Mr Borg.

"The Social Democrats are now promising an increase in employment that is 50 percent higher than the estimates made by the National Institute for Economic research's (NIER) forecast. - it places very strong question mark what kind of policies that will achieve the target, "said Anders Borg.

He said that one problem with unemployment targets is that they can be reached by driving people away from the labour market, for example through increased early retirement.

"Our conclusion is that the Social Democrats will present a case where the risk is quite obvious that they will pursue policies that push people from the labour market to achieve it and that we will return to an exclusion policy that we had during the Persson government, "said Anders Borg.
<<<<< Leader of the Social Democrats - Stefan Löven >>>>>
He also said that a case of cyclical unemployment removes focus from structural problems in the labour market and pointed out that the EU countries that have lower unemployment than Sweden also has a lower labour force participation among women.
Today Mr Borg and his government have also been encouraging more Swedish youths to seek employment out side the country such as in Norway. Therefore, that could be interpreted that they are taking the work force out of the labour market. Has that had any impact on the unemployment number?

In Norway, Swedish workers have come into collusion course with the Norwegian authorities who have accused the Swedish authorities of seeking Norway to help them reduce their unemployment.

They have called on Sweden to pursue policies to make youths get jobs in Sweden and not to migrate and block Norwegian from their own job market. Thus Ander Borg surely know how to take workers out of the jobs market
Scancomark.com Team

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