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ECONOMY

Swedish inflation drops to 4.5 percent, beating expectations

Sweden's inflation fell faster than expected last month, new figures show.

Published: 14 March 2024 08:50 CET
Swedish inflation drops to 4.5 percent, beating expectations
Rising rents and mortgage costs in Sweden were moderated by lower electricity prices in February. Photo: Janerik Henriksson/TT

The yearly inflation rate according to the consumer price index (CPI) stood at 4.5 percent in February, down from 5.4 percent in January, according to number crunchers Statistics Sweden.

Experts had predicted an inflation rate of 4.7 percent, according to Bloomberg.

Increased housing costs in the form of rising rents and mortgages contributed to the inflation rate in February, but were moderated by lower electricity and fuel prices. 

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Inflation measured instead according to the CPIF metric – the consumer price index with interest rate fluctuations taken out of the equation – meanwhile fell from 3.3 percent to 2.5 percent.

That still keeps CPIF inflation slightly above the 2.3 percent recorded in December, as well as the Riksbank’s target of two percent.

The Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, is expected to lower interest rates at some point this year, as soon as inflation is comfortably steady at around two percent.

The third common inflation metric, CPIF-XE, which excludes energy products, stood at 3.5 percent in February. That’s a decrease from 4.4 percent in January and the lowest rate since March 2022.

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STATISTICS

More than one in ten foreigners in Sweden don’t have a close friend

Hundreds of thousands of people in Sweden don't have a close friend, a new survey by national number crunchers Statistics Sweden shows.

Published: 23 April 2024 11:05 CEST
More than one in ten foreigners in Sweden don't have a close friend

“It’s statistically proven that between 610,000 and 720,000 people aged 16 and above don’t have a close friend. That corresponds to seven to eight percent of the population at that age,” said Statistics Sweden analyst Thomas Helgeson in a statement.

It’s more than twice as common for foreign-born people not to have a close friend.

Around 13 percent of Sweden’s foreign-born population don’t have a close friend, compared to six percent of native-born Swedes (the figure is roughly the same for the entire group of people born in Sweden, regardless of whether they have foreign or Swedish parents).

There’s a gap between the sexes too. Nine percent of men and six percent of women don’t have a close friend.

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There’s a similar gender gap among foreign-born residents in Sweden, of whom more than 15 percent of men said they don’t have a close friend, compared to almost 11 percent of women.

And finally, the more highly educated people are, the greater the chance of close friendship.

More than 12 percent of people without a Swedish high school diploma said they lacked a close friend, compared to just over five percent of those with a university degree of at least three years.

Have you managed to find friendship in Sweden? We’d like to hear about your experiences. Please fill out the survey below – we may use your answers in a future article on The Local. If the survey doesn’t appear for you, click this link.

 

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