The so-called vulnerable groups, which according to the Swedish Public Employment Service will have difficulty finding work, include, for instance, young people with little education and people born outside of Europe. As shown in Figure 5, the percentage of people registered as unemployed and belonging to vulnerable groups rose in 2008 and 2009. This percentage has since remained at a level that is much higher than for groups with a stronger position. 11  See Statistics Sweden’s report “Integration – a regional perspective”, 2010. BIS central bankers’ speeches  9  Figure 5 Total unemployment broken down into vulnerable and non-vulnerable groups Percentage of register-based labour force, seasonally-adjusted and trend-adjusted statistics 12  12  Vulnerable Non-vulnerable Total  10  10  8  8  6  6  4  4  2  2  0  0 04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  Note: The group of vulnerable people includes those with only secondary-school level education, those in the age range 55–64, those born outside Europe, and those with disabilities. Source: Swedish Public Employment Service  Despite the recovery in economic activity in 2010 and 2011, the percentage of employed in the most vulnerable groups thus hardly declined at all. Almost 60 per cent of the total number of persons registered as unemployed belongs to groups in the labour market that experience difficulty finding jobs quickly.
Calculating equilibrium unemployment after the fact is difficult and requires a number of assumptions. Serious attempts have been made, but as shown, they have had varying results. At the same time, monetary policy is forward-looking and is thus guided by forecasts of economic development. However, assessing the level of equilibrium unemployment in several years is even more complicated. And, as I mentioned earlier, even if we could know what the level of equilibrium unemployment would be further ahead, this would give us no guidance for monetary policy in the here and now. The economy is regularly subjected to structural changes affecting equilibrium unemployment. And we have limited knowledge of how the adjustment from one equilibrium rate to another occurs, or how long it takes. This means that using equilibrium unemployment in practical monetary policy is not uncomplicated. It is therefore important to closely monitor all of the statistics that reflect conditions on the labour market, which we already do. Monetary policy can primarily affect unemployment in the short term, via aggregate demand. Here I can mention that several debaters have previously claimed that an incorrect balance in monetary policy has made a significant contribution to the negative developments in the labour market. Naturally, we should not conduct a monetary policy that leads to demand being unnecessarily low and to unemployment becoming higher than it would have been because we single-mindedly react to the risk of inflation rising.