But it seems safest at present to count on a potential annual GDP growth rate of between 2 and 2.5%. Growth can be temporarily higher When the labour force is not being fully utilised, the increase in employment can exceed the trend rate of about 0.5%. In a transitional period the economy can then grow faster than its potential rate in the longer run. Unemployment in Sweden is still historically high. That might suggest that the labour market has plenty of unutilised resources at its disposal. Some bottleneck problems are already showing up,  1  See LU 1999/2000 Bilaga 1 (Medium Term Survey 1999/2000, Annex 1, Population, labour force and employment), Ministry of Finance. BIS Review 13/2000  2  however, and are an indication that there is only a limited number of persons with the appropriate training and occupational experience for the jobs that are available. Moreover, statistics from the National Labour Market Board show that the number of unfilled vacancies at employment offices has risen to the highest level since 1990 and business tendency data from the National Institute of Economic Research reveal that certain sectors are now finding it difficult to recruit labour with the required training and occupational experience. The problems are accentuated by the fact that a large part of the increased production and hence the expansion of employment is concentrated to the metropolitan regions and other university cities. This means that bottleneck problems are starting to impede the growth of production and employment.
Effectively, this would mean that an insurer or takaful operator cannot refuse to show an adviser its range of products which has been a strategy used by some companies to protect their investments in the training of their own agents and discourage them from abandoning exclusive arrangements with the company. Of course, having access to the broadest range of products would not mean very much if advisers do not build the capacity to understand their features and effectively compare and contrast them against the specific needs of a client. This requires greater investments by financial advisers in the training of your representatives, information systems and in building relationships with a broader network of product providers. Let me now touch for a moment on some observations from our recently concluded fieldwork which examined the effectiveness of current mandatory disclosures in providing financial consumers with the information that they need to make financial decisions. The study which we conducted focused on the Product Disclosure Sheet (or PDS) which financial service providers are required to provide to all consumers before they enter into a financial contract, and covered life insurance and investment-linked products, structured investments and mortgages. We surveyed over 400 respondents and found that while the PDS provided by financial service providers is covering the type of information that consumers believe are important for making informed decisions, key product information is obscured in lengthy narratives, excessive information and technical or legal jargon that is difficult to understand.