Nordea assesses that the Swedish labor market will continue to recover and that registered unemployment will decline further in early next year, before stabilizing at around 5 percent.
The bank says this in a macro comment after the register-based BAS statistics showed a 0.1 percent increase in employment in August, while unemployment rose marginally to 5.3 percent from 5.2 percent in July.
“However, unemployment has declined from 5.6 percent a year ago. The number of people registered as unemployed with the Public Employment Service continued to decline in September, indicating that unemployment, as measured by BAS, will also decrease. Weekly data from the Public Employment Service for October point to a further decline”, the bank writes.
Nordea considers the register-based BAS statistics to provide a more reliable picture of the
labor market than the Labour Force Survey, AKU, which shows unemployment at 8.7 percent in the third quarter, despite employment increasing by 0.8 percent compared with the previous quarter.
The bank emphasizes that the record-high labor force participation rate explains why unemployment according to AKU remains at high levels despite rising employment.
“Overall, the Swedish economy has returned to normal, and the labor market is following suit”, Nordea writes.
