How the Swedish employment agency keeps huge surpluses while unemployment remain high in the country.

Monday, 16 April 2012
Sweden brags that it had a very clean public finance record but could this be because the government is not spending the money and chooses to sort of hoard it just in the name of
Being hailed as the best in public finance management?

Not long ago, the EU criticised Sweden for not spending its huge surpluses in things like infrastructure which was accounted to be in pretty bad shape. But the government institutions continue to hoard their money while the systems continued to not work well in what the opposition, Social Democrats as irresponsible tightening of core resources needed to make the system work.

One of such instances in that which the Swedish daily, Dagens Nyehter unearth which show that as a large number of people in the country struggle with the negative effects of high unemployment, money set aside to get the unemployed into work remains high because the department is not using it. Since 2007, the Swedish Employment Service has returned nearly Skr18 billion to the Treasury, unused according to Dagens Nyehter.

The Swedish opposition in parliament is not happy. One of the less severe items in the government's spring budget is measures against unemployment. But last year, according to the latest annual report to the Authority, the surplus was Skr3.1 billion. A total of Skr17.9 billion in unspent appropriations for five years, according to the paper. Meanwhile, unemployment has risen and taken hold at around 8 percent.

Peak year was 2010 with Skr5.9 billion in bonuses for Finance Anders Borg. Then, there was the excess of the unemployment insurance fund, which is due to many people left without unemployment insurance or was extensively hedged.

Recently the Employment Service’s General director, Angeles Bermudez-Swan Kvist Committee visited to explain the excess. Appropriations not used have grown since she took over as chief executive of the authority 2008.

According to her, due to a lower than forecasts unemployment numbers, they have been careful with taxpayers' money. But this was repudiated by Ylva Johansson of the opposition, Social Democrats’ Labour Market Committee
“It's a waste not to use this money. Activities have been regulated in an unreasonably strict manner,” says Ylva Johansson.
The Green Party’s Mehmed Kaplan, member of the Labour Market Committee, also criticized the government's control of the Authority. “I am concerned that not even the department know. For we should have changed the budget on time then.”

The current coalition government has been struggling with persistent unemployment problems since they took over control on the economy in 2004. The worse is youth unemployment which is becoming a real catastrophe for a progressively looking Swedish economy. The question which is hard to answer is why the government can’t allow resources to be used in helping people get back to work? Even the mothers of all capitalist, the USA is spending money on the jobless.
By Scancomark.se Team

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