Sweden experienced the economic downturn in recent years. Due to the weaker international growth, the bursting of the IT bubble on stock exchanges, and dramatically reduced growth in the telecom market [4]. The IT crises have impacted Sweden really seriously. Although finding jobs in Sweden was hard during that time and the unemployment was high in 2004, it is expected to have an upturn in the coming year form the sharp rising exports in 2004. Since Sweden is a relatively small industrialized country, the international trade is the critical factor to maintain high productivity. Thus, the rising export in 2004 was treated as a sign of the recovery of economy. The upturn of the industrial manufacturing also brings up the service sector which ties to it, such as IT activities.

In the press release of Swedish National Labour Market Administration in February[5], named “Labour Market Board Forecast: Where the jobs are in 2005? ”, it indicated some occupational sectors which will have the increasing demand for personnel: a clear turnaround for technology and IT jobs, a better labour market for industrial workers, etc. As explained in the previous section, the industry exports play an important role in the whole economic. Thus, the following section aims at industry sector of telecoms and IT sections which are caught with worldwide attention.

Telecommunication and Information Technology

Traditional industries in Sweden based on its two most important raw material resources – iron ore and wood [1]. Later, it was based on the success development of transportation equipment sector, such as VOLVO and ABBA. However, after the retransformation of industry, the engineering industry and high-technology sectors have grown quickly. Till now, Sweden is one of the leading countries in telecommunication and IT. Studies by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show that Sweden is among the leading countries in terms of Internet penetration, e-commerce and corporate use of telecoms and IT [3]. Other data also show that the people and company in Sweden use e-service and Internet everywhere.

There are three bases of Swedish IT and telecoms success: investments in education, research and development (R&D) and infrastructure [3]. Especially the R&D investment cost, Sweden is one of the countries that spend most on it. In other words, they put their industry with more knowledge-intensive way. The increase in knowledge intensity of course makes the leading position of Sweden among other countries. As a result, the needed of high-educated profession grows. All of these companies together make many new job opportunities and let the research of IT and university of technology shown rapid growth.

The Future

Although the dark time in past years, many companies and employees were affected by the crises in IT and telecoms, it surely reduced the job demand. However, as we can see the present trend: mobile and wireless communication, which is still under development, there’re still many urgent needs for improvement of current technology. What’s more, the embedded computer and applications are still under development. Also, the advanced medical, environmental and biotech researchers in Sweden will utilize telecoms and IT to create new possible investigate. The already in-use Internet Service will be needed to add the consideration of system security and data-transformation security. As the forecast report said, the labour market will improve for persons with advanced education in technology and the IT professions. Sweden still will be the leader of the telecoms and IT industry.

Reference:

1. Fact Sheets on Sweden published by Swedish Institute, “The Swedish Economy”
2. Fact Sheets on Sweden published by Swedish Institute, “Swedish labor market policy”
3. Swedish Industry published by Swedish Institute, “Telecommunications and Information Technology in Sweden”
4. Swedish Industry published by Swedish Institute, “Swedish Industry”
5. www.ams.se, Swedish National Labour Market Administration