Sweden’s finance minister considers it likely that unemployment will remain high – also in 2021.
The Swedish government is planning that the unemployment rate in 2020 will increase to nine percent as a result of coronaviruses. This corresponds to a half million unemployed.
at the same time, the Swedish economy will shrink by four percent.
It tells the minister for finance Magdalena Andersson at a press conference Tuesday morning.
– It is a decline that is just as large as during the financial crisis, she says.
Andersson considers it likely that the unemployment rate also in 2021 will be around nine percent, before declining slightly in 2022.
the Unemployment rate in Sweden in 2019 was in the best months, down about six percent.
– We find ourselves in a very serious economic situation. There is a shock to both the demand and supply, notes the Swedish minister.
She says, that uncertainty spreads to the general households.
the minister of Finance calls it a historic rapid slowing of the economy. But she estimates that the recovery will go faster than during the financial crisis, which hit for a little over ten years ago.
The Swedish government think, therefore, that the country’s economy will grow by 2021. Anderson estimates that a growth in gdp of 3.5 percent will be an option.
But she stresses that forecasts so far ahead are still uncertain.
/ritzau/TT
