Sweden – To stop attacking the unemployed and instead attack unemployment

Sweden’s new government is targeting a “paradigm” shift for job creation in the largest Nordic economy as it raises spending and scrapped plans for reaching the surplus target. 

The new Social Democratic-led government today unveiled plans to spend almost 20 billion kronor ($2.7 billion) over the next two years to cut Scandinavia’s highest unemployment rate.

“We’ll stop attacking the unemployed and instead attack unemployment,” Prime Minister Stefan Loefven, a former union boss, said today at a press conference in Stockholm. “We will now begin the march toward lower unemployment.”

The Social Democratic and Green Party minority government gained power this month after ousting Fredrik Reinfeldt’s four-party coalition. It has vowed to increase spending on welfare and job programs after eight years of tax cuts by the former government. Loefven also pledged to have the lowest unemployment in the European Union by 2020.

Sweden’s unemployment was 7.4 percent in August, compared with 3.9 percent for Denmark and 6.7 percent for Germany.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Sweden Pledges Paradigm Shift for Job Growth as Surplus Scrapped – Businessweek.