505,000 people aged 15-74 were unemployed during the second quarter, which corresponds to an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent. This is an increase of 2.1 percentage points compared with the corresponding period in 2019, according to Statistics Sweden's labor force survey.

- Unemployment has increased in the age group 15-44 years. The largest increase is among people aged 15-24, and this applies to both men and women, says Magda Tordenmalm, who is the administrator of the labor force surveys at Statistics Sweden.

Young more vulnerable

One group that has been hit hard is those with fixed-term employment. The number amounted to 692,000 people during the second quarter, a decrease of 87,000 from the period last year.

- It is above all the younger people who have lost their fixed-term employment, the largest group are people between 15 and 34 years old. And it is young women who seem to have been hit the hardest, says Magda Tordenmalm.

The number of employees in Sweden was 5,048,000 during the second quarter, a decrease of 98,000 compared with the corresponding quarter last year. It provides an employment rate of 67 percent in the population.

The employment service sees lightening

The Swedish Public Employment Service has also published statistics which show that around 134,000 more people are registered as unemployed compared with the end of July last year. But after a large increase in new enrollments during the corona spring, the rate of increase has now slowed down during the summer. The Swedish Public Employment Service has therefore lowered its forecast of how many more are expected to lose their jobs before the winter.

Minister of Labor Eva Nordmark (S) sees this as a positive signal but does not want to draw any far-reaching conclusions from the forecast.

- This is the most serious situation in the Swedish labor market in modern times, says Eva Nordmark to TT.