Last year, the political parties were all courting the business community, but in the run-up to this year’s election, business issues seem to have vanished from the political agenda.
The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise Director General Urban Bäckström made his remarks at a regional business meeting earlier this week.
“Swedish political discourse is being conducted as though businesses didn’t exist, as though politicians were the ones creating jobs or that jobs simply create themselves. This does not augur well for the election.”
Bäckström was convinced that most company owners in his audience did not recognize the picture painted by media and the politicians: that the economy has turned a corner and it will shortly be ‘business as usual’.
The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise Director General pointed out that even if domestic demand is increasing, it will be some time before consumer demand for goods and services from other countries picks up properly. Many business owners are still fighting to keep their heads above water, he noted.
“Companies are operating on small margins. This makes it risky to take on staff and difficult to finance expansion. Add to that the worry that the central wage negotiations will prove to be expensive, with unions and politicians demanding strong wage hikes, and many companies might go down.”
Urban Bäckström called for an election campaign debate on conditions for businesses.
“In a situation where many businesses still have large problems, action is needed to improve conditions for business. These issues should be getting high priority from all parties in the lead-up to the election and after,” he said.
The social democrats and the moderates, both potential governing parties, have a special responsibility to reveal what they believe will bolster companies’ competitiveness and pave the way for increased growth and employment, Bäckström said.
“It’s not enough for a government to talk about high unemployment as exclusively an issue for labour market brokering while at the same time ignoring the need of companies for manpower.
“The [red-green] opposition seems to think that jobs will be created by taxing companies and wage-earners even harder. I don’t know whether the point is to punish companies for letting staff go during the finance crisis or what the argument is, but it won’t produce more jobs but fewer,” said Urban Bäckström.
