The entry requirement from the unions was a 4.4 percent wage increase in one year, the employers responded with 2 percent plus a lump sum of SEK 3,000. Inflation in the past year has also been much higher, in February the Riksbank’s inflation figure was 9.4 percent.
SVT has spoken with Irene Wennemo, director general of the Mediation Institute, and Lars Calmfors, professor emeritus of international economics. They agree that the wage increases will ultimately 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, says Lars Calmfors.
Instead, one might look at the 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 percent in one year. The answer to how to solve the situation was to coordinate wage formation so that everyone knew how big the wage increases would be in the coming year. Then the crisis ended quite quickly, says Irene Wennemo.