Nurses will be SEK 578 richer if the union gets what it wants

If the unions get their salary demands through, an assistant nurse can strengthen her purchasing power by SEK 578 a month next year, Arbetet's calculations show. A metal worker gets an increase of SEK 654.

The unions in industry are demanding wage increases of 4.2 percent when new collective agreements are to be signed at the beginning of next year.

If we assume that they get through with their demands, then the real salary - i.e. the salary adjusted for inflation - could increase by SEK 578 a month for an assistant nurse in elderly care, Arbetet's calculation shows.

Put differently: The nurse can pay for food, petrol and other things for SEK 578 more each month than she can now.

Unusually high salary increase

For a metal worker, purchasing power would be strengthened by SEK 654 per month. That would be an unusually high real wage increase. The contrast is drastic against 2022 and 2023, when high inflation eroded wages sharply.

The fact that it looks so bright is because the period of high inflation is now over. Inflation is currently below the Riksbank's target of 2 percent. While wages are rising at a rate of almost 4 percent per year.

- In the 16 months that have passed since the "mark" was set in the 2023 agreement movement, Swedish real wages have increased by almost 4 percent, says Petter Hällberg, national economist at the Mediation Institute with responsibility for wage statistics.

- It is the fastest development of real wages in the entire 2000s during a corresponding time period after a mark was set.