In recent weeks, the Employment Service has fed us with one tepid figure after another. April is now summed up, which shows that unemployment has risen from 6.7 percent to 8.1 percent in a year.

Above all, it is open unemployment that is rising sharply. The Employment Service has not had a chance to capture the influx and offer courses or other measures.

In April alone, the unemployed have increased by 71,000 to 245,000, compared with April last year. A total of 419,000 were registered as unemployed at the end of the month.

Strikes against all groups

But that figure is already overplayed. Later today, the Employment Service with last week's statistics and anything but a continued substantial increase would be a major scare. The authority's own forecast is at least eleven percent ahead this summer.

The alarming trend in the labor market is striking against all groups, women as men, young and old, in the north and south, domestically and abroad. But the fact is that unemployment is rising faster among domestically born, albeit from clearly lower levels, 52,000 more compared to 30,000 more unemployed born outside Sweden.

In April, 26,770 people were notified of dismissal. This can be compared to last year's more normal figure of just under 3,000 the same month last year.