Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

POLITICS

Social Democrats at 10-year low: poll

Sweden's Social Democrats are haemorrhaging support and are less popular than at any time in the past 10 years, according to a new poll from Synovate. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's Moderate Party has a stable lead over its main rival, the poll shows.

Published: 24 June 2010 09:25 CEST

Social Democrats at 10-year low: poll

With less than three months to the general election, polls are now being published almost daily. The Red-Green opposition, which has held a commanding lead over the government for most of the past four years, is now trailing the centre-right coalition, according to the poll commissioned by newspapers Sydsvenskan and Dagens Nyheter.

The four governing parties had the support of 49.1 percent of voters, while the opposition has 44.5 percent support.

Support for Mona Sahlin’s Social Democrats has fallen by almost 2.5 percentage points since May and by 5 percent since April. The party’s 30.0 percent rating is its lowest in ten years.

The Moderate Party are at 33.1 percent, an increase of 1.3 points since May. The centre-right lead of 4.6 points is within the margin of error, but the opposition had a lead of 8.1 points as recently as April.

The poll confirms a number of other recent surveys, which also showed a small centre-right lead over the opposition.

The Social Democrats are losing support primarily among voters under 44 and particularly among those under 30.

Synovate interviewed 2,973 people over the age of 18 between 7th and 22nd June. They were asked: ‘If there was a parliamentary election today, which party would you vote for?’

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Business leaders: Work permit threshold 'has no place in Swedish labour model'

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise said in its response to the government’s consultation, submitted on Thursday afternoon, that it not only opposed the proposal to raise the minimum salary for a work permit to Sweden’s median salary (currently 34,200 kronor a month), but also opposed plans to exempt some professions from the higher threshold.

“To place barriers in the way of talent recruitment by bringing in a highly political salary threshold in combination with labour market testing is going to worsen the conditions for Swedish enterprise in both the short and the long term, and risks leading to increased fraud and abuse,” the employer’s group said.

The group, which represents businesses across most of Sweden’s industries, has been critical of the plans to further raise the salary threshold for work permits from the start, with the organisation’s deputy director general, Karin Johansson, telling The Local this week that more than half of those affected by the higher threshold would be skilled graduate recruits Swedish businesses sorely need.

But the fact that it has not only rejected the higher salary threshold, but also the proposed system of exemptions, will nonetheless come as a blow to Sweden’s government, and particular the Moderate Party led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, which has long claimed to be the party of business.

The confederation complained that the model proposed in the conclusions of the government inquiry published in February would give the government and political parties a powerful new role in setting salary conditions, undermining the country’s treasured system of collective bargaining.

The proposal for the higher salary threshold, was, the confederation argued, “wrong in principle” and did “not belong in the Swedish labour market”.

“That the state should decide on the minimum salary for certain foreign employees is an unacceptable interference in the Swedish collective bargaining model, where the parties [unions and employers] weigh up various needs and interested in negotiations,” it wrote.

In addition, the confederation argued that the proposed system where the Sweden Public Employment Service and the Migration Agency draw up a list of exempted jobs, which would then be vetted by the government, signified the return of the old system of labour market testing which was abolished in 2008.

“The government agency-based labour market testing was scrapped because of it ineffectiveness, and because it was unreasonable that government agencies were given influence over company recruitment,” the confederation wrote.

“The system meant long handling times, arbitrariness, uncertainty for employers and employees, as well as an indirect union veto,” it added. “Nothing suggests it will work better this time.”

For a start, it said, the Public Employment Service’s list of professions was inexact and outdated, with only 179 professions listed, compared to 430 monitored by Statistics Sweden. This was particularly the case for new skilled roles within industries like battery manufacturing.

“New professions or smaller professions are not caught up by the classification system, which among other things is going to make it harder to recruit in sectors which are important for the green industrial transition,” the confederation warned.

Rather than implement the proposals outlined in the inquiry’s conclusions, it concluded, the government should instead begin work on a new national strategy for international recruitment.

“Sweden instead needs a national strategy aimed at creating better conditions for Swedish businesses to be able to attract, recruit and retain international competence.”

Url copied to clipboard!