Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Social Movements - 1. Labour Questions and Social politics - Unemployment Problem. By O. Järte
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v. social movements.
affords ample opportunities of winter work, opportunities which the agricultural
population and the unskilled workmen from industrial districts who then migrate
into the forest regions, avail themselves of regularly and in great numbers. In
agriculture unemployment has as a matter of fact made itself but little felt;
for in Sweden the great majority of farms are in the nature of small holdings,
looked after by the owner himself with the assistance of his family; and as to
the larger farms, they generally employ permanent hands; thus the farmer can
count on having a supply of labour for his harvest, when it is otherwise
difficult to get workers, and his workpeople can count on having employment in
the winter, when it is otherwise difficult to get work. Seasonal unemployment
in other branches is further diminished by the fact that so large a part of
Swedish industry, and especially some of the most important season industries
(saw-mills, tile-works, sugar factories etc.,) are located in the rural districts. In the
country it is easier for the unemployed to obtain work in the forests; moreover,
a large part of the rural working population have either dwellings of their own,
or facilities for renting cheap dwellings; and most of these dwellings have a
small farm, or at any rate a plot of ground, attached to them. However, in
spite of these counteracting factors, seasonal unemployment makes itself very
keenly felt in the Swedish labour market, especially among the unskilled
labourers living in the cities: these workmen, as a rule, can get no other work
in winter time than casual jobs, such as clearing away the snow, cutting ice,
and the like.
The grave evils always attendant on seasonal unemployment, assume in times
of economical crisis the character of acute social distress among the working
classes. The ranks of the season-wise unemployed, who, in periods of crisis, have
less prospect than ever of obtaining in winter time temporary employment in
other branches, are then swollen by the victims of those whom the industrial
crisis has thrown out of work. A situation like this occurred in Sweden, as in
other industrial countries, during the general period of. depression in the world
market in 1908 and 1909. The relation between supply and demand was thereby
so alarmingly thrown out of gear, that the Government found it necessary to
set on foot two unemployment censuses, which were instituted in January 1909
and 1910, on the same day, in all towns and large industrial communities
throughout Sweden. Notwithstanding that the matter was purely voluntary, and
that the returns had solely a statistical purposes, large numbers of
unemployed repaired to the telling booths to fill in the enquiry formulas, namely in
1909 no less than 20 106, and in 1910 as many as 14 016. However, those
who thus registered their names represented but a fraction of the total number
of unemployed in Sweden: that number was estimated to have amounted during
the winter of 1909 to at least 60 000, two-thirds of which appear to have been
season labourers. During this critical period, as on previous occasions of a
similar nature, the communes made arrangements for setting on foot public
works, so as to provide the unemployed unskilled labourers in the towns with
extra labour in the shape of excavation work, blasting, dock and road works,
and the like. Public works of this kind were arranged for in the winter of
1908 to 1909 in 38 towns and in 14 rural communes, for an estimated cost of
1 236 110 kronor. The State endeavoured to keep as many of its works as
possible going during the winter. Also many large industrial establishments in
private hands — establishments which make it their business to turn out
specialities and whose interest accordingly was to maintain a skilled and trained
personnel at full strength — preferred sooner to curtail the hours of labour
than to cut down the numbers of their working staff.
Conditions in the labour market improved with improving general economic
conditions after 1910; but the bitter experience of the last period of unemployment
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