Madam, - Constantin Gurdgiev (Agenda, December December 19th) lambasts Sweden's economic performance. He trots out the old myth that high welfare compensation means low employment. He claims that "a whopping 35 per cent of Swedish able-bodied adults remain outside employment".
In fact he has probably confused Swedish and Irish figures: according to Employment in Europe 2004, in Sweden the employment rate was 72.9 per cent, so about 27 per cent of Swedes were not at work. By contrast, in Ireland in the same year the comparable employment rate figure was 65.4 per cent. That means that a "whopping" 35 per cent of Irish adults remain outside employment.
Ireland's recent boom has certainly involved a growth in total employment, but the overall employment rate remains rather low. There are pockets of unemployment, and in particular the employment rate of some age groups of women is still below the European average. Indeed, most of our employment growth now comes from immigration rather than a higher utilisation of the existing population.
Dr Gurdgiev makes much of the slow employment growth in Sweden, but it is not clear why a growth in the total number of people employed is itself desirable. What actually matters is the employment rate of the existing population - and here Sweden continues to comfortably out-perform Ireland. - Yours, etc,
JAMES WICKHAM, Employment Research Centre, Department of Sociology, Trinity College, Dublin 2.