The figure shows that the trend increase has not been as large at the end of the 1990s as during the period up to 1995. It should also be remembered that the method used to calculate the trend has the characteristic that it reflects changes in the actual underlying trend at a slower rate. In addition, the very high rates of increase for productivity during the latter part of the 1990s reflected both a relatively rapid growth in the private sector relative to the public sector and a strong growth in the IT-producing sectors, particularly the telecom industry. It is not likely that future developments will follow the same paths. Nevertheless, there are many indications that the long-term increase in productivity now is higher than it was during the 1970s and 1980s. Factors in favour of this are the fairly comprehensive changes that took place during the 1990s, particularly the introduction of the new stabilisation policy regime and a greater degree of openness in the Swedish economy. Labour supply a major cause for concern Let us now move on to study how the labour supply has developed during the same period of time. My next slide shows the actual growth and trend for the number of hours worked (Figure 6). To begin with, one can conclude that developments have been relatively adverse during the greater part of the 1980s and 1990s.
And we can see this clearly when we study developments adjusted for absence due to sickness (Figure 8). Here we can see that the average working hours have shown a declining tendency even when adjusted for people who have not worked due to illness. Compared with the period 1994-1995, average working hours have declined by around 3 percentage points and the negative tendency is particularly strong after 1999. Moreover, the other curve in my diagram - for the number of employed shows that the growth in working hours last year was curbed by a lower increase in employment. This was in turn a result of the economic slowdown no longer affecting just manufacturing, but also the services sector. The decline in working hours appears to depend on three main factors, apart from increased absence due to illness. The first factor is an increase in other types of absence than illness, e.g. holidays or looking after sick children. The second is a decline in the amount of overtime worked and a reduction in the working hours agreed between employers and employees. The third factor is a shift where more people choose to move over from full-time to part-time work. The relative significance of structural and economic factors in this context is again difficult to assess. There are many indications that variations in overtime are particularly affected by economic activity. Although it is more difficult to determine how this relates to the other factors.