Compensation rate and percentage of people with fixed-term employment contracts, before and after the financial crisis (A) Compensation rates (b) Fixed-term employment contracts 90  Low income Average 2001-2007 and 2010-2018 Average income Average 2001-2007 and 2010-2018  80  18  90 18 80  17  17  16  16  15  15  70  70  60  60  50  50  40  40 14  Average 2000-2007 and 2010-2018  01  04  07  10  13  16  00  04  08  12  16  14  Note. Per cent of wage replaced after preliminary tax for medium and low income earners during three months of unemployment and number of fixed-term employment contracts as a percentage of the total number of employees. Sources: The OECD, Statistics Sweden and own calculations  Changes on the labour market may have contributed to lower prices and wages The period following the financial crisis was a challenge, from a monetary policy perspective. Inflation has on many occasions been lower than expected and even below the target. On average, inflation measured in terms of the CPIF has been around 0.3 percentage points lower after the financial crisis than before, see Figure 3a. But it is not only inflation that has been lower than expected, wages have also been lower. Wage increases have been around 1.1 percentage points lower after the financial crisis, see Figure 3b.
The low outcomes have surprised not only the Riksbank, but also many other analysts. But despite inflation and wage increases being lower than expected, resource utilisation – measured as a shortage of labour – has not been unusually low. It has on average been at around the same levels as prior to the financial crisis, see Figure 3c. Monetary policy has in turn been expansionary, with a policy rate that has on average been just over 2.5 percentage points lower after the financial crisis than before it, see Figure 3d. In addition, there have been large purchases of government bonds to make monetary policy even more expansionary. 9 See Kjellberg (2018). 6 [24]  Figure 3. Inflation, nominal wages, labour shortages and the policy rate in Sweden, before and after the financial crisis (a) CPIF (b) Nominal wages 4  4 5  3  3  2  2  1  1  0  0  -1  03  06  09  12  4  4  3  3  2  2 Average 2000-2007 and 2010-2018  Average 2000-2007 and 2010-2018 00  5  15  (c) Labour shortages  18  -1 1  00  03  06  09  12  15  18  1  (d) Policy rate  Note. (a) Annual percentage change, (b) annual percentage change, wages according to short-term wage statistics (c) per cent, (d) per cent.