COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, JR., New Jersey, Chairman JENNINGS RANDOLPH, West Virginia HAROLD E. HUGHES, Iowa WILLIAM D. HATHAWAY, Maine JACOB K. JAVITS, New York J. GLENN BEALL, JR., Maryland JOSEPH P. MCMURRAY, Staff Director and Chief Legislative Counsel ROY H. MILLENSON, Minority Staff Director SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT, POVERTY, AND MIGRATORY LABOR GAYLORD NELSON, Wisconsin, Chairman EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts WALTER F. MONDALE, Minnesota ROBERT TAFT, JR., Ohio RICHARD S. SCHWEIKER, Pennsylvania RICHARD E. JOHNSON, Counsel CONTENTS Bengtsson, Ingemund, Swedish Minister of Labor, accompanied by Allan Larsson, Under Secretary of Labor; Bertil Rehnberg, Director General, National Labor Market Board; Bert Isacsson, Head of the Labor Divi- sion of the Ministry of International Affairs; and Birger Viklund, Labor ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Act Concerning Employment Security in Sweden (SFS 1974:12), Doc. Act Relating to Board Representation for the Employees in Joint Democratization and Reorganization, by Erik Karlsson, LO.. Employment Tomorrow, Terms of Reference for the Royal Commis- sion on Long-Term Employment, from the Ministry of Labour (Arbetsmarknadsdepartementet) International Secretariat, Stock- Future Developments in the Public Service and the Implications for the Trade Union Movement, by Rudolf Meidner, speech delivered at the Convention of Public Services International, New York, Oct. 10, Labor Market Policy, AMS Budget Proposal for the fiscal year 1975/76, from the National Labor Market Board, Sweden_-_ New Labor Laws, Security of Employment, The Status of Shop Stewards Industrial Litigation, from the Swedish Ministry of New-Style Factories, Swedish Experience in the Field of Work Orga- nization and Job Design, by Rolf Lindholm, from the Swedish Em- Pre-School in Sweden, Facts, Trends, and Future, by Bodil Rosengren, 201 Swedish Employment Policy, from National Labor Market Board 13 LABOR MARKET POLICY IN SWEDEN, 1974 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1974 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT, POVERTY, AND MIGRATORY LABOR OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee convened at 2:45 p.m., in room 4232, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Gaylord Nelson (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senators Nelson and Javits. Committee staff members present: Richard E. Johnson, counsel; John K. Scales, minority counsel; and Larry Gage, professional staff member. Senator NELSON. Mr. Bengtsson, the committee is very pleased that you would be willing to take the time to come here today and give the committee the benefit of your advice on some of these issues in which our country and this committee is very interested. As I'm sure you know, Mr. Minister, unemployment in America stands today at 6 percent-and it is still rising. Five and one-half million Americans are currently out of work, according to official estimates or more workers than there are in the entire Swedish labor force. Furthermore, this figure does not take into account those who are "underemployed" or "subemployed" in America today-those who have dropped out of the work force because they are too discouraged at their inability to find a decent job-those who are locked into part time jobs with no hope of advancement-and those many millions who are employed full time in dead end jobs at subpoverty wages. I believe we have much to learn about formulating a comprehensive employment policy in America. In Sweden, you consider 3 percent unemployment a national tragedy; yet in America, where the numbers are so much greater, there are some people who are beginning to talk of considering 5 percent unemployment "full employment." Clearly, we still have a long way to go in educating our decisionmakers and in educating ourselves. In this subcommittee, Mr. Bengtsson, we have dealt for many years with the problems of job training and retraining, full employment, public service employment, job satisfaction, and many other issues of the workplace. We hope we have advanced the art in this country a little bit, even though so much remains to be done. And throughout these years, when we have wanted to search in the international arena for positive examples of truly active, comprehensive manpower policies, we have always come first to the Swedish experience. We there fore welcome this opportunity to receive your testimony and perhaps take some advantage of that experience. We would appreciate it if you would have your associates identify themselves for the reporter so the record will show who was here. Mr. BENGTSSON. Thank you. We are indeed honored to be with you today. May I first present my colleagues I have with me here. Allan Larsson, Undersecretary of Labor; Mr. Bertil Rehnberg, Director General, National Labor Market Board; Mr. Bert Isacsson, head of the Labor Division of the Ministry of International Affairs; Birger Viklund, labor attaché. Senator NELSON. Thank you very much. Let me say again I regret being so late, but we had two rollcalls backto-back and I had to be there. And I have another matter coming up on the floor of the Senate in about 20 minutes or so. But you go ahead, and I would be pleased to hear your observations. STATEMENT OF INGEMUND BENGTSSON, SWEDISH MINISTER OF LABOR; ACCOMPANIED BY ALLAN LARSSON, UNDER SECRETARY OF LABOR; BERTIL REHNBERG, DIRECTOR GENERAL, NATIONAL LABOR MARKET BOARD; BERT ISACSSON, HEAD OF THE LABOR DIVISION OF THE MINISTRY OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS; AND BIRGER VIKLUND, LABOR ATTACHÉ Mr. BENGTSSON. We have, of course, not come here today pretending that we carry with us any solutions for your problems. We just want to inform you about how we try to cope with the problems in the labor market. First, Sweden is a small country, as you know, 8 million people living there. And ours is a highly industrialized country. Our total labor force is 4 million people. And our unemployment figure to date is 1.9 percent of the labor force. And that is measured the same way you do, a labor force survey. Senator NELSON. Do you use approximately the same techniques so that they would be figures that you consider comparable to ours? Mr. BENGTSSON. Yes. We take out 18,000 each month and you take 50,000 as we have heard. Senator NELSON. And you sample in a similar manner? I have prepared a statement about the labor market policy. It has developed considerably during the past few decades in our country. There has also been a steep rise in the allocations of resources within labor market policy. In 1960 these amounted to some $100 million. Today they stand at more than $1 billion. Senator NELSON. What do you mean "allocation of resources within the labor market?" Mr. BENGTSSON. That is the money the Labor Market Board can handle; that is money for relief work and all of the measures we have in the labor market policy in order to create new jobs. Senator NELSON. This is money then that is earmarked for the purpose of providing some kind of job for somebody who becomes unemployed? |