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Hwtmann. Sweden

1_Youth on thg Swedish Labour. MartŁst

4.1. The rise of vouth unemployment in Sweden

The responsibiiity of the stale for fuli employment and for a smooth trans* formation in times of structural change in economy was generally accepted by all groups in society. Therefore, instruments for labour market inter-yentions already eiisted when the economic crisis with increased unem-ployment. especially among the young generation, affected Sweden in the middle of 1970s.

For a period of morę than 30 years, the Swedish labour market was char-acterized by a shortage of labour which had to be compensated by immi-gration. During the same period both, the unions and the employers agreed on a labour market policy which not only accepted closing down non-prof-itable industries, but also facilitated structural changes directed towards a higher national productivity and by that towards a higher standard of liv-ing for all Swedes. For young people, the only problem was to get a quali-fied training which enabled the individual to adapt to the on-going devel-opment in economy.

"School was supposed to give a good education to everybody. Anybody with good education was thought to get a well-paid job. By that schooling would contribute to solve unemployment, to raise materiał standards, and, as almost everybody would attend the same school, it would produce the anticipated materiał redistribution in society."

(Adler-Karlsson 1983, 47)

To fight youth unemployment. one only needed to eipand the training system and to increase the quality of education and vocational training. Consequently. all Swedish youth have to attend a comprehensive compul-sory school until the age of 16 and in addition, an integrated secondary school providing both, theoretical programmes and vocational training was introduced in 1971. In 1985, about 98* of all 16-year-olds in Sweden started secondary schooling, 37* in theoretical programmes 3 years or longer and 61* in vocational training and 2-year programmes. While the vocational training offered during secondary education eipanded, most other forms of training as apprenticeships or company training programmes disappeared.