Swedish employers: Their organisation and sphere of influence

The Swedish Employers' Federation (SAF), which reached its 75th birthday in September 1977, today operates in a highly developed economy. In 1902 Sweden was relatively a poor country, where 55 per cent of the working population was employed in agriculture and forestry, and only 27 per cent in industry and mining. Today, six per cent of the working population is concerned with agriculture and forestry, whilst industry, mining and construction account for 36 per cent. And there are 30 per cent in public administration and other services and fifteen per cent in trade. The rise of this industrial economy in some seventy years has been achieved largely by private enterprise and initiative, inventive genius, the development of foreign trade, and a sound system of industrial relations. Some forty per cent of the industrial production is exported which is equivalent to twenty‐four per cent of the total production of goods and services measured in monetary terms. The recent devaluation of the Krona has been designed to boost exports in order to overcome the balance of payments deficit which has increased considerably in the past year. Sweden, like Britain, has been affected by the slow economic recovery of Europe and other areas in the world.