The entry requirement from the unions was a 4.4 percent salary surcharge in one year, the employers responded with 2 percent plus a lump sum of 3,000 crowns. At the same time, inflation over the past year has been far higher, in February the Riksbank's inflation figure was 9.4 percent.
SVT has spoken to Irene Wennemo, Director General of the Mediation Institute, and Lars Calmfors, Professor Emeritus of International Economics. They agree that wage increases are ultimately likely to be far from inflation, and point out, among other things, that the parties are probably trying to avoid repeating the upward spiral of the 1970s, where wages and prices rose for a long time.
"When inflation is high and you start to expect it to continue to be high, you raise wages sharply, and then companies have to raise their prices and it becomes a spiral where wages and prices chase each other. That's what happened in the 1970s," calmfors says.
Instead, one might look at inflation in connection with the Korean War in the 1950s. Then inflation rose rapidly but then fell back.
"Inflation went from 1.5 to almost 17 per cent in one year. The answer to how to solve the situation was to coordinate wage formation so that everyone knew how big the salary increases would be in the coming years. Then the crisis passed quite quickly, says Irene Wennemo.