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the nature and content of their work, employment becomes a compulsion to gain one's living on terms dictated by others. It is therefore essential that employees themselves should be able to influence the shaping of their conditions of employment, their tasks and their working environment in order for work to be meaningful and capable of enriching the life of the individual.

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The growth of public responsibility for employment

It is this view of the importance of work to the individual and to society that has led Government and Parliament to assume an increasing responsibility for measures aimed at providing employment for a progressively larger proportion of persons of active age. The aim has been to even out social and economic differences between individuals, groups and regions.

The policies implemented to counteract the depression of the early 1930s marked the establishment of an active employment policy. Gradually a wide section of public opinion came to accept the principle of active state intervention in the economy to combat unemployment.

Parallel to the improvement of conditions in the labour market, the aim was adopted of providing employment for more people and at the same time devising means whereby full employment could be combined with balanced economic development. In a report on "Trade Unions and Full Employment", published by the Swedish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) in 1951, it was maintained that general measures of economic policy could not suffice to reconcile the conflicting aims of full employment and a stable value of money.

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The Government Bill of 1966 forming the basis of a Riksdag resolution concerning the guidelines for labour market policy emphasized that "Labour market policy is an important branch of economic policy. Its aim is to achieve and maintain full, productive and freely chosen employment. This aim cannot 1) The Swedish Parliament

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be achieved once and for all. Full employment can only be ensured through measures which are constantly adjusted to current requirements. Aspirations with regard to the provision of meaningful employment have risen and our efforts must be stepped up accordingly."

During the 1960s the instruments of labour market policy developed in a variety of directions and were provided with far greater resources. Support for geographical and occupational mobility - labour market training, removal and starting grants - acquired considerable importance together with sheltered employment and more traditional means of creating employment such as relief work projects. Behind this rolicy lay a desire to increase the opportunities open to individuals in the labour arket and at the same time make it easier for firms with stability of employment and good wage-paying capacity to attract labour.

In recent years the standards of labour market policy have been raised still further. In addition to providing employment for those who actively require it, the aim has been to change the conditions of persons whose unemployment is of a more latent

nature.

In other respects, too, labour market policy has assumed a more thoroughgoing character. Thus a series of actions have been taken to induce firms to adjust their labour demand more closely to the aptitudes of workers instead of requiring a unilateral adjustment on the part of job applicants. This aspect of labour market policy is designed to counteract the tendency for less eligible persons to be eliminated from the labour market and also to improve the position e.g. of handicapped persons.

Labour market policy has also come to entail increasing efforts to break down the persistent division of the labour market into traditionally male and female occupations and tasks, the aim here being to promote equality of the sexes.

Structural change, the declining populations of certain regions

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and the rising aspirations of employment policy attracted attention to the differences between different parts of the country with regard to the range of job opportunities. An active location policy was framed with a view above all to encouraging industrial development in those parts of the country where employment was declining.

An Act of 1964 reinforced the resources of location policy by means of advisory and informative activities for business enterprises, wider social planning and loans or grants to individual firms. Measures of training grants and employment grants were added in 1970. The goal of regional policy is for people in the different regions of the country to enjoy equal opportunities of employment and equal social, commercial and cultural amenities as well as a positive environment.

The problems of the labour market were intensified towards the end of the 1960s. Changing conditions in the labour market, rapid technical development and various measures of industrial policy in many competing countries helped to accelerate the pace of economic change. Quite often job security, employment and incomes were felt to be in jeopardy. Increasing demands were put forward for greater initiatives by the Government. The active industrial policy then inaugurated is designed to help stimulate industrial expansion and full employment.

The responsibilities and powers of Government and Parliament regarding economic development have steadily increased. There is now general agreement on the need for Government initiatives via cyclic, labour market, regional and industrial policy in order to cater for rising expectations with regard to work and incomes. As a result of these rising aspirations and increased initiatives, employment has grown and groups which were previously excluded from the labour market now have far better prospects of participating in working life.

3 Trends in the labour market during the sixties and

seventies

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During the 1960s, the population of employable age increased by almost 300,000. A great deal of this increase was due to a natural rise in population, but net immigration also made a major contribution. These population changes were accompanied by a steep decline in the numbers of persons employed in agriculture and forestry. The number of persons employed in industry attained its peak in the mid-1960s. Since then industrial employment has declined in both relative and absolute terms. However, there are exceptions to this trend. Employment in the engineering industry rose steadily throughout the period in question, increasing by 23,000 between 1965 and 1973.

In spite of the declining employment figures for manufacturing industry, total employment has risen quite steeply in recent years. During the 1960s rapid economic growth coupled with various public initiatives provided employment for roughly an additional 300,000 people. According to the labour force surveys, the number of persons in employment rose by 165,000 between 1965 and 1972. This rise reflects a relatively high level of net immigration, above all towards the end of the 1960s, and an increased participation rate among women. Thus the proportion of women in gainful employment rose from 37 to 54 per cent between 1965 and 1972.

Most of this additional employment was provided by the national administration, local authorities and county councils, e.g. in the form of appointments for nursing staff, home helps, teachers and other school personnel. In this way increased employment helped both directly and indirectly to bring about an increase and a more equitable distribution of affluence.

This expansion of the labour market was also prompted by a desire to break down traditional barriers to gainful employment. Tax reforms such as the separate taxation of husband and wife, the rapid expansion of education, active labour market and regional policies, the activization of industrial policy and a

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series of reforms in the field of family policy have all helped to make it possible for more and more people to go out to work. Consequently the level of employment has risen since the beginning of the 1960s despite a steep rise in the number of students aged between 16 and 24.

Since the second half of the 1960s, registered employment has tended to increase in many industrial nations. A previously discernible trend towards a long-term diminution of unemployment would thus appear to have been weakened or broken. This description also applies to Sweden. The new course of developments can be attributed to a variety of factors.

The rapid pace of economic development has had repercussions on individual firms as well as entire industries and regions. This transformation has placed new and more stringent demands on work input in the production process. At the same time more and more people have begun to seek employment. This new attitude stems from the rising aspirations of labour market policy and from a series of measures which have made it easier for people to enter working life.

The effects made by society to provide work for groups which previously only ventured into the labour market to a limited extent have helped to increase the supply of labour. As already observed, total employment has steadily increased, which means that a certain proportion of latent job seekers have become overt applicants. The number of latent applicants for employment has declined, as witness the following table.