“In July, long-term unemployment rose by 45,000 people compared to July last year,” Statistics Sweden statistician Louise Stener said in a statement.

The agency recently said that the Swedish economy is in a “clear recession” according to almost all indicators, and unemployment figures are also reflecting that.

The number of people aged 15-74 who were in work amounted to 5,444,000 individuals, not seasonally adjusted – that’s a decrease of 80,000 compared to July last year, but not all of those people were classified as long-term unemployed (unemployed for at least 27 weeks).

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Long-term unemployment amounted to 164,000 people, with significant differences when broken down by age and gender.

There were 71,000 women and 93,000 men in long-term unemployment, and 149,000 young people (aged 15-24 years). Youth unemployment hit 17.7 percent, which is an increase of 6.5 percentage points. This data is not smoothed or seasonally adjusted.

The unemployment rate for 15-74 year olds according to smoothed and seasonally adjusted data stood at 8.3 percent – that’s the highest unemployment rate in a decade, including the pandemic. Youth unemployment was even higher, at 24.4 percent.

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