The question is whether it is expected to become better or worse. Consequently, these variables are not good measures of the level of resource utilisation, but rather of whether this is increasing or decreasing. However, the business tendency surveys also include variables that measure levels. For example, this applies to the shortage of labour in the business sector and capacity utilisation in the manufacturing industry. These have both increased recently and it cannot be ruled out that these will reach normal levels by the end of this year. (Figure 8. Shortage of labour in the business sector and capacity utilisation in the manufacturing industry). It is also interesting to compare shortage of labour with unemployment. These co-varied significantly before the crisis. However, shortage of labour is now increasing more rapidly than unemployment is falling. This indicates that there may be significant matching problems in the labour market long before unemployment comes down to a normal level. (Figure 9. Shortage of labour in the business sector and unemployment). At the Riksbank, we have also developed a special indicator to measure resource utilisation, the so-called RU indicator. 11 This uses a principal component method to extract common information from a large number of business cycle indicators in levels. The RU indicator also indicates that resource utilisation in Sweden was about as high in 2007 as at the previous peak in 2000. This contrasts with the GDP gap based on HP trends, which was much higher in 2007 than in 2000. (Figure 10.
The negative gap at the recession’s lowest point in 2009 has been estimated at – 4 per cent by the European Commission and at – 7 per cent by the OECD. The GDP gaps of 2010 and 2011 according to both of these institutions can be disregarded, as their reports were compiled before the summer and, since then, GDP outcomes have been surprisingly high. In its latest report, the IMF reckons with a GDP gap of approximately 2.5 per cent for 2007, followed by a decrease to almost – 5 per cent in 2009 before reaching – 1.5 per cent in 2011. 8 (Figure 5. The GDP gap according to the Riksbank, the OECD, the IMF and the European Commission). All three organisations reckon that potential GDP has fallen in conjunction with the crisis. For example, the OECD estimates that potential GDP has decreased by an average of approximately 3 per cent for the countries in the OECD area, as a consequence of the crisis. Approximately two-thirds of this decrease is due to higher capital costs caused by the return to normal risk and interest rate levels after the abnormally low levels prevailing prior to the crisis, which is having a dampening effect on capital intensity. The remaining third is due to an increase in structural unemployment and a decrease in labour supply. As regards Sweden, the dampening effects of structural unemployment and falling labour supply are deemed to be below average, however.