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relocation grants for persons moving to localities where work is available, such grants consisting of transportation costs for the worker and his family and a special resettlement allowance. In 1969, 32,400 persons throughout the country received these grants. A vocational training and retraining program is also operated by the government. Vocational training centers throughout the country accept trainees referred by employment exchanges, give them room and board if necessary, and provide training in needed skills. During training, workers receive about 80% of their normal pay. In March 1970, 44,600 persons were in training. Other measures adopted by the government include early retirement benefits to elderly workers who are less fit for work or who are having difficult finding employment, the development of public works projects and the subsidizing of other needed work projects—notably in construction, and cash grants to the unemployment insurance funds sponsored by the trade unions.

3. Wages, hours, and working conditions

Swedish wages are the highest in Europe and the third highest in the world after the United States and Canada. When account is taken of family allowances and other social benefits, they more nearly match their North American counterparts. The following tabulation shows the increases in average hourly wages in U.S. dollars for male workers in various industries over the past decade:

The nominal wages of industrial workers increased 300% between the end of World War II and the latter 1960's, a period in which inflation caused a 100% rise in consumer prices, yielding a rise in real wages of a little over 4% annually. An initial impetus to this growth was provided by the Marshall Plan and was enhanced shortly by the boost given the economy by the Korean War. The trend in nominal and real wages is portrayed graphically in Figure 13.

'''FIGURE 13. Indexes of hourly wages, cost of living, and real wages (U/OU)''' (chart)

Labor costs include direct pay, which is determined by wage rates established in collective agreements plus "wage drift" (the amount by which employers, competing for scarce labor, raise wages over and above the rate provided in contractual agreements), and indirect labor costs. In the year ending 1 March 1971 hourly wages and mining and manufacturing increased 7.2% and then averaged US$2.41 an hour. The following tabulation compares direct hourly earnings (in U.S. dollars) for Swedish workers in manufacturing with those of other Western European countries and the United States:

In mining, the highest paid industry, the average wage was $3.03 in 1970; in textiles and clothing manufacturing, the Lowes paid industry, it was $1.96.

Taxes and fringe benefits in 1970, amounting to 21.4% of the direct blue-collar wages and largely paid by the employers, consisted of the legislated pension plan, 7.7%; health insurance, 3.1%; accident insurance, 0.4%; group life insurance, 0.4%; severance pay fund, 0.2%; vacation pay, 8.1%; and government payroll tax, 4.0%. In the public sector the hourly wages of blue-collar employees in the national

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