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Economic slowdown in Swedish service sector

TT/Claudia Rodas
TT/Claudia Rodas - [email protected]
Economic slowdown in Swedish service sector

The Swedish economy looks gloomier than ever as the service sector's economic growth slows down from 3.1 percent in the first quarter to 2 percent for the second quarter.

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According to a report from Almega, an organization that supports service companies in Sweden, the only silver lining is a healthy IT sector.

"All indications are for even weaker growth than two percent in the third quarter. Demand and production is slowing down for various sectors", according to statement by Almega's chief economist Lena Hagman.

This does not bode well for the Swedish economy.

"A significantly weaker growth in production for both service providers and industy this year means that the GDP growth will be much weaker than most had counted on", writes Hagman.

So far, this has not affected jobs too much, but sales are down and productivity is down. In the long run, this may affect employment.

However, Almega's report points out that the IT sector remains very healthy. IT consultants should still have plenty of work coming in. The demand for IT consultants rose in the year's second quarter to almost the same level as it was in 2000, just before the IT bubble burst.

Almega has some 8,600 member companies employing 350,000 people.

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