The total number of benefit days in 1971/72 was 11.2 mill. compared to 8.3 the previous

year.

The figure for 1972 includes approximatively 980,000 days for which extra benefits were paid, the corresponding figurs for 1971 being 700,000 days. These extra benefits go to elderly persons who are entitled to prolonged cash benefits for 300 days in the event of unemployment. Insurance benefits paid out increased by more than 50 per cent, from 559.5 M. kronor in 1971 to 365.2 M. kronor in 1972, with extra benefits amounting to 43.1 M. kronor and 27.3 M. kronor respectively. The average total benefit per day was 49.11 of which 0.92 kronor took the form of children's allowances.

The Board is the first and the Insurance Court the final forum of appeal on questions relating to insurance payments and the like; 763 appeals against decisions by individual funds were received by the Board in 1972. The appeal were passed on to the Insurance Court in 148 cases. The corresponding figures for the period July 1, 1972-June 30, 1973 were 870 and 166 respectively.

The adjustment grant, which is entirely financed by the central government, is a form of unemployment assistance that came into force from 1 July 1968. To qualify, the unemployed person must be at least 55 years old and have been gainfully employed for at least 24 months during the past three years. The full grant amounts to a maximum of 800 kronor and the half-grant to maximum 400 kronor a month.

A total of 1,957 persons, 1,206 of them women, were awarded adjustment grants during the fiscal year 1972/73. Expenditure on this grant amounted to 30.9 M. kronor compared with 34 M. during the previous fiscal year.

Purchases of machinery, transport vehicles and personnel carriers etc. totalled 11.28 M. kronor (1971/72 8.48 M). Sales of redundant equipment brought in 0.56 M. kronor. 1971/72 0.22 M.); revenue from the leasing of plant and equipment to the Board's own projects and to outside interests amounted to 17.20 M. kronor (1971/72 14.43 M.).

Temporary accomodation was purchased to the value of 1.5 M. kronor (1971/72 6.5 M.) to provide accomodation at relief work sites and labour market training centres and for the housing of workers tranferred from other parts of the country, and refugees. 56 such

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places were added during the year. There was a decrease of 1,468 places as buildings were sold or disposed of. The net decrease was thus 1.412 and the total number of beds in Labour Market Board accomodation was 11,029 at the end of the fiscal year. The total number of family dwellings rented for Gypsies was 33. Board purchases of temporary accomodation is mainly of the type developed by the Board itself, which can be used either for single persons or for families. There were 71 such dwellings at the end of the fiscal year.

Separate Programmes in Labour Market
Policy

A number of problems are of such a nature that the Board has had occasion to indicate in more detail how the various instruments of labour market policy may be combined in order to arrive at a solution. In some cases, this has taken the form of special programmes adopted by the Board, and in others it has taken the form of agreements with the labour market organizations. An account of combined efforts of this nature which utilize the various resources of the Board is given below.

Action in connection with the advance warning system. An agreement exists between the Board and the labour market organizations which provides for advance notice of impending production-cuts. When a County Labour Board receives notice of an impending closure or production-cut, a consultation group is formed where suitable and likely to facilitate the process of readjustment. The group contains representatives for the County Labour Board, the employer, the employees and the local authority. Once the notice has been made public, the personnel affected are informed at a special meeting.

The work of the employment service starts immediately the notice has been made public. Working on the basis of the employer's list of staff affected, the requirements and qualifications of each individual worker are charted by means of interviews. These interviews later form the basis for the review and procurement of employment, the planning of retraining measures in courses and at firms, and any measures to create employment which may be necessary during a transitional period.

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The main task of the consultation group is to support and facilitate the work of the employment service. It discusses County Labour Bord plans and what it can do to facilitate re-adjustment. It may also put up its own proposals for action to this end. Special attention is given to the needs of older workers and handicapped persons who will have particular difficulty in finding new employment.

Under the warning agreement, all parties concerned at local or central level are obliged to help ensure that transfers of staff resulting from cuts in production are effected as smoothly as possible. The liaison groups therefore meet regularly and do not abandon their activities until the transfer process has been completed.

A considerable number of consultation groups have been active during the fiscal year. They have provided valuable assistance to the Employment Service in the adjustment of persons laid-off in conjunktion with closurese and cuts in production.

In the case of labour with longer education several measures have been taken to tackle the problems occasioned by the rapid increase in persons completing a university education.

As previously employment officers stationed outside university towns have served for a month at the labour exchanges in the university towns in order to become acquainted with the problems involved and to promote a greater geographical and occupational dispersion of the labour.

At the university towns there has for instance been a special labour market orientation for those who have almost completed their studies. Special "labour market seminars" have been arranged through the cooperation of the university, the student body and the County Labour Board. Individual guidance has been intensified in conjunction with these weeks.

Information about various educational groups has also been distributed to employers. During the year 2,500 graduates took part in courses for labour with longer education arranged within the framework of labour market training. Most of these participated in the course "Labour market information with practical experience". In order to increase the supply of short course for graduates who have difficulty in obtaining firsttime employment, a special task force has been set up with representatives for the Lebour Market Board, the National Board of

Education, the Office of the Chancellor of the Swedish Universities, the National Swedish Union of Students and the labour market organizations.

A number of firms have started employing labour with longer education on production jobs with a view to subsequent promotion to salaried appointments. A joint venture by the Labour Market Board and a number of firms involves a special trial activity in the form of labour market training and production work. The whole of this activity is still on a modest scale but is tending to expand. During the year employment was provided for somt 1,600 persons with a university education, using relief work chiefly in the services and nursing sector.

Activity programmes have been worked out within the Board for elderly and middleaged labour as well as for women.

The measures taken during the year largely involved the implementation of the regulations concerning elderly persons that came into force in June 1971. The Security of Employment Act (SFS 1971:202) regulates the dismissal and laying-off of employees over 45 and it is the task of the Labour Market Administration to provide information about this act.

The Act concerning certain measures to promote the employment of elderly persons on the open labour market gives the labour market authorities greater possibilities for influencing employers so that elderly persons have increased opportunities of employment. The work of implementing this act has been coupled with the existing activities for a better adaptation of working conditions to the labour concerned.

The new forms for collaboration between the Employment Service, employers and trade-union organizations, having been tried out in a number of counties, have been further developed and used as a pattern for the regulations under the Act. After consultations with the parties concerned, the Board has thus instructed the County Labour Boards to promote the formation, at firms with more than 50 employees, of so called adjustment teams with which the Employment Service can collaborate in matters to do with elderly and handicapped persons. At the end of the fiscal year 2,600 groups were functioning and about 700 were being built up.

During the year, ten courses to do with ergonomics and adjustment groups were

44-725 75-3

arranged for staff of the Administration and representations of the parties on the labour market. 76 conferences have been arranged.

Information about the regulations concerning elderly persons has been disseminated at e.g. central, regional and county conferences. The written information material has taken the form of instructions and specially prepared folders. It is intended in time to form adjustment groups on a branch or a local basis for firms employing between 5 and 50 persons.

As a further means of helping to place persons with occupational handicaps, several trials have been started with a view, among other things, to setting up criteria for a "light" workplace and analyzing the possibilities of making ergonomic changes.

The situation of women on the labour market has attracted the attention of the Board for a long time and prompted special activities for helping women switch to and/or retain gainful employment.

During the tight labour market situation in the past fiscal year activities have had to be aimed chiefly at increasing the opportunities of employment by watching for job opportunities on the open market, by relief work and by labour market training to improve the capacity of job applicants for the work available.

The importance of training and the chance of utilizing a period of unemployment for training have also been emphasized in the information disseminated via the employment offices, in brochures and with the help of mass media. The situation of women and the need for training have also been treated at courses and conferences on which the Board has been represented.

It is important that attempts are made to break down sex-rôle attitudes among men as well as women. During the year the Labour Market Administration participated in a special sex-rôle project within the National Board of Education as well as in one-week courses in sex-rôle questions for teachers.

Recruitment measures. The demand for labour, measured as the number of new vacancies, was lower throughout the fiscal year compared with the previous year. Special measures were taken to increase interlocal employment services.

Employment Service activities have included an exchange scheme for employment officers. Officers from areas with high un

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employment have served for some time in demand areas and vice versa. Firms have also sent their own representatives to the labour exchanges and the County Labour Boards in counties with high unemployment to give information about job opportunities etc. Information about job opportunities has also been provided in the form of advertising campaigns in the daily press and trade journals.

Special measures have been taken to attract qualified labour, so called "key persons", to the forest counties, where there is a shortage of such labour.

Information to conscripts. Altogether 50,000 conscripts were discharged during 1973.

Special information drawn up by the Labour Market Board, the National Board of Education and the Personnel Division of the Defence Staff was distributed to the conscripts in due time before their discharge. At the same time the County Labour Boards and the Employment Service spread information at regional and local level in collaboration with the personnel consultants at the defence units. A special unemployment count undertaken about two months after their discharge showed that 1,000 of the exconscripts were registered as unemployed.

Planning, Research, Forcasting, etc.

As in the past, the Board's quarterly assessment of the current situation and developments on the labour market have been of great importance for the planning and execution of measures of labour market policy. The assessments are based in the main on reports from the County Labour Boards; other sources include business tendency data for industry, trade, construction and forestry together with other shortrun statistics.

The labour force surveys, which used to be conducted once a quarter, have been undertaken monthly from Januari 1970. Approximately 18,000 persons (1/340th) of the population aged 14-74 years are interviewed concerning their employment situation in a particular week. The surveys yield valuable information about long-term structural changes in the labour force and its development in the short term.

Certain data on the employment situation in 1971 as a whole were collected in conjunction with the regular survey in February 1972, corresponding to previous special studies of the situation in 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970

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respectively. The material from February 1972 has been processed to date into reports on job seeking in 1971 and on the structure of annual unemployment in 1971.

The survey in February 1973 included special questions concerning e.g. annual employment, unemployment during the year and job applicants.

As regards jobseeking, the report shows that nearly 800,000 persons sought jobs on one or more occasions during 1971. This is an increase by 100,000 over 1970. Among the jobseekers 385,000 50,000 less than in 1970 wished to chang their jobs, i.e. sought a job while in employment. About 55 per cent of the jobseekers unemployed and employed - availed themselves of the services of the employment offices compared with about 45 per cent in the two previous years. The earlier published report on jobseeking during 1970 was supplemented by a report on jobseeking between different occupations and job changes in that year.

In order to obtain better information on the attitude of newly arrived workers to the information which the employment office, employers, trade unions and the local authorities give them in connection with their removal to and employment in the new community, a report based on interviews with newly arrived workers at four major establishments in Hudiksvall has been prepared. Reports have also been published on the background of unemployment, based on data from the labour force survey in November 1971, and on the consequences of a number of production changes during the years 1966-1970.

The labour market development during the period 1965-1972 for salaried employees has been compared with the development for other categories based on labour market studies and material from the Central Bureau of Statistics. As in previous years reports have been prepared on the regional policy

measures.

The county labour boards have collected employment data for the end of 1971 from all enterprises which received some form of location assistance during the years 1963-1971. The report based on this material shows that the 1,058 enterprises assisted during the period employed about 128,500 persons. The increase amounted to nearly 28,000 persons (about 30 per cent) from the time assistance was granted up to the end of 1971.

As in the past, certain monthly unemployment counts were extended to include information on e.g. unemployed aliens, length of unemployment and the educational level of young and elderly unemployed.

Advance warnings of impending staff cuts reported to County Labour Boards totalled 981 during the year (1,285 in 1971/72) and are estimated to have affected about 19,800 employees (32,600 in 1971/72), approximately 14,500 (24,800 in 1972/72) of them at industrial firms.

Of these warnings, 366 related to closures, 238 of them in the industrial sector. Some 9,400 persons in all were affected by these closures, 7,000 of them industrial employees. The corresponding figures in 1971/72 were 400 closures affecting about 11,600 employees, industrial closures numbering 297 and affecting about 9,300 persons.

The bulk of warnings came from the metal and engineering industry, where 194 impending staff cuts were announced, affecting some 5,900 persons. Warnings in the textile, clothing and leather products industry came from 117 firms and in the wood industry from 70 firms, the number of persons affected being 2,100 and 1,600 respectively.

The programme of support for the location of enterprises includes e.g. regional development grants and depreciation loans, loans, loan guarantees and the reimbursement of costs incurred when moving firms to places within the general development area (roughly northern Sweden).

During the fiscal year, 18 firms were granted regional development grants/depreciation loans only and 190 received regional development loans as well. Grants/depreciation loans totalled about 89 M. kronor and relocation subsidies about 4 M. kronor. Loan guarantees for operating capital were provided for 31 firms to a total of about 12 M. kronor. Regional development loans alone were granted to 112 work places. The total amount granted in the form of such loans was about 289 M. kronor.

The estimated increment to employment as a result of regional development assistance was 4,550 persons.

Employment subsidies are available for industrial enterprises in the interior development area (roughly the interior of northern Sweden) that pay their employees in accordance with collective agreements and increase their annual labour force from the previous year. The subsidies, which are payable over

a three-year period, amount to 7,000 kronor a year for the first two years and 3,500 kronor in the third year for each additional full-time employee. A total of 265 work places were granted subsidies during 1973 for manpower increments in 1972 and/or maintained increments from 1971 and 1970. First-year subsidies totalling 6.2 M. kronor, second-year subsidies totalling about 5.9 M. kronor and three-year subsidies totalling about 2.8 M. kronor.

Consultation prior to location is intended to provide allround information about the conditions for locating enterprises in different parts of the country, with particular reference to the economic benefits associated with locations in the general development area. Firms wishing to establish or expand activities in the three major conurbations (Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg) are obliged under certain circumstances to give notice of their intentions to the Labour Market Board and consult with the Board about the conditions for locating enterprises in various conceivable places.

During the year, 190 consultation notices were submitted to the Board and consultations have been held with 163 of the enterprises in question.

Training assistance can be granted by the Board to enterprises that establish or expand activities in the general development area. Outside this area such assistance can be obtained subject to special approval from the Government.

During the fiscal year 1972/73, training grans were approved for 8,916 trainees at 682 firms.

The investment reserve funds for contracyclical measures totalled 3,820.3 M. kronor at the end of the 1971 tax year, a decrease of 170.7 M. from the previous year. The number of enterprises holding such funds totalled 3,768 at the end of the tax year, which is 251 more that a year earlier.

During the 1971 tax year, new appropriations to such funds totalled 817.8 M. kronor, of whcih 796.7 M. to "ordinary" funds and 21.1 M. to funds for forestry investments. Withdrawals totalled 988.5 M. kronor; of this sum, 40.2 M. was withdrawn without authorization and thus became taxable.

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ment accounts. During the fiscal year the Board issued some 150 authorizations to transfer about 103 M. kronor altogether to stock investment accounts.

Some 830 applications to utilize investment funds were approved by the Government during the fiscal year. As in previous years, such approval was granted for investments of importance for regional development; in view of the economic situation, applications were also approved in the case of investments having a more general stimulatory effect. Thus the majority of licences concerned investments in southern and central Sweden. The Government's authorizations included certain restrictions on the benefits associated with the use of investment reserve funds.

The Board has prepared proposals for a reserve of investment projects for fiscal 1973/74 on the basis of research material provided mainly by government agencies and municipalities. The proposals relate to state, municipal and state-supported projects for a total cost of 2.026 M. kronor, of which 1,340 M. concerns construction work (including forest cultivation etc.), 321 M. housing construction and 365 M. orders to industry. The proposals formed the basis for a Government Bill (1973:80) concerning a public relief work budget for 1973/74. Parliament authorized the Government, should the labour market situation so require, to approve relief work up to a total of 600 M. kronor under this budget.

In the fiscal year 1972/73 the Board was authorized to subsidize municipal planning for building and construction projects. The subsidies granted totalled 30 M. kronor and concerned 589 construction projects for a combined cost of 900 M. kronor. The total employment reserve in the projects for which planning subsidies were granted in 1972/73 is estimated to 1.9 million days work compared with 1.2 million days in the provious fiscal year.

During the year the Board was authorized to place orders for government supplies with industrial firms that gave advance warning of substantial lay-offs. Such orders placed during 1972/73 corresponded to a purchasing cost of 17.4 M. kronor.

The collaboration with research institutes has continued.

Some previous studies are being followed up. In the so called Gothenburg study, a sample of those who migrated to the Gothenburg "A" region were interviewed one month