Economic - political background and current problems
The Swedish economy underwent extreme fluctuations during the nineties. At the beginning of the decade there was still an economic upswing in progress. A rapid deterioration in the economy occurred the following years due to a combination of several factors and Sweden entered a depression period lasting some four years. Employment rates fell drastically as more than half a million jobs vanished and open unemployment rocketed to record levels close to 10 per cent. At the same time close to 5 per cent of the Labour Force were put into various active Labour market measures. In 1996 and onwards the economy recovered. At the end of the decade the growth was strong, unemployment was reduced to 4 per cent and inflation more or less exterminated. Those turbulent times revealed clearly various groups who lost jobs or had severe problems to enter or re-enter the Labour market. This presentation will focus three groups which we in this context call vulnerable.
In the aftermath of the Swedish deep recession during the nineties we can still trace consequences in terms of persons who never managed to cease being customers of the Public Employment Service (PES). Long-term registered persons have now for some years been in the focus rather than long-term unemployed. Another group, which always has been identified as vulnerable, is the occupationally handicapped . Through their handicaps they obviously have problems to enter the Labour market without some sort of support. The third group, consists of immigrants and refugees , notably the non-Nordic or foreign-born jobseekers . It ought to be emphasised clearly that what we here call groups does not mean that those persons have much in common referring to characteristics apart from how they have been defined in this rough context. If Labour Market Policy efforts should pay off these persons must be seen and treated as individuals .

Labour Market Barriers
Occupationally handicapped can not easily compete with people without any handicap unless they get some individual support to compensate for the handicap or in other means to increase their attractively on the Labour market.
Immigrants and refugees also to a high degree face problems, like language barriers, qualification barriers, and lack of validation of possessed competence. Also there are probably reasons ranging from employers reluctance to employ foreigners to sheer discrimination - even if the latter is hard to prove. Foreign born also loses their jobs at higher rates than Swedish born. The discrimination laws do not seem to prove being efficient to prevent this negative development.
Long-term registered persons are distant from the Labour market as they have failed to get a job during a long period. For many individuals in this group there is a risk to be passive and give up hope to succeed in their endeavour to enter Labour market. For others educational or vocational skills might prove not to be satisfactory.
Government Policies
All the three groups being discussed are of main interest for the Government in terms of outlining policies, provision of resources, setting targets for PES to be reached as well as the design of programmes for these groups. All these three vulnerable groups have also become even more in focus for Government attention in recent years as the awareness has increased of expected future shortages of Labour force due to present age distribution and foreseen retirements

Programme models and incentives
We divide our services at PES into three broad categories, matching, training and activatio n. The core service in the Public Employment Service is of course the job brokerage, or the matching as we call it. Matching jobseekers with jobs. It is also the most successful measure for individuals to get jobs. The second sphere of activities is t raining which include educational activities and measures related to vocational and individual needs but also basic skills enabling the individuals to be well prepared for training. Finally activation embrace all other measures/-services for various target groups/individuals to equip them with skills, self-esteem and energy to enter the Labour force and to get jobs.
The Employment officers have today a range of different measures/programmes at their disposal to support customers in need of training or activation. Most of them can be used for both vulnerable groups as well as for those who need less support.

Occupationally handicapped
By tradition since long the occupationally handicapped are those who benefit from special resources and the widest set-up of various measures and support facilities. To facilitate the entry of persons with disabilities into regular em-ploy-ment the most successful measure is subventions to employers. Apart from wage subsidies we have two different type of sheltered employment.

Immigrants and refugees
No major specific active Labour market measures have been designed exclusively for immigrants. They are however being given priority and access to regular measures. Both training and various kind of Work Practise together with temporarily subsidised employment are common regular measures in use. Also some special services and extra resources have been developed.
First and foremost language training in Sweden is offered in the municipalities in which they settle. PES can nowadays offer all services without prior language training. It is however quite clear that knowledge in the language makes it easier to get an employment. Supplementary training for persons with foreign university level education is a fairly new concept.

The long-term registered
The long-term registered is the biggest target group for a fairly new program introduced some year's back. It is called The Activity Guarantee and is a holistic approach - or if you prefer an "umbrella for extra resources" - aimed at helping those who have most difficulties in entering the Labour market. The Activity Guarantee is designed to break the vicious circle of policy programmes and open unemployment and to counteract the view of long spells of unemployment as a natural part of life. All participants receive support and assistance from a counsellor. Together they draw up a personal action plan setting out full-time daily activities. The Activity Guarantee Program allows for the application of a battery of job support modules, the most basic and common module being intensive job-search training and activities.

Outcome
Without measures for the occupationally handicapped the Labour Force would be considerably lower and unemployment higher. At the end of 2003 Sweden had more than 62 500 persons employed with help of wage subsidies, well above the Government set target. More than 10 000 persons are yearly leaving their wage subsidised jobs. Some 10 per cent of them continue employment without any subsidies. When we check out the results for the immigrants, usually they are not that encouraging as unemployment levels are many times higher than for Swedish born. However unemployment has fallen and employment risen for both new immigrants and immigrants of longer standing in recent years. During 2003 some 35 000 - 40 000 persons were accommodated in the Activity Guarantee monthly. Of all persons who entered the Guarantee during the period July 2000 – August 2003 more than 50 % have now left. Monitoring reveals that the status of those persons in the end of February 2004 is distributed as follows; 16% have got regular work without subsidies and 15% got work with subsidies, 3% moved on to regular training and 19% left the program and consequently also the Labour force. As the Labour market undergoes changes continuously the conclusion could be that it is important not just focusing our prioritised groups, but also scanning for emerging new ones. To provide employment for vulnerable groups is always paying off for the society, both in terms of less expenditure and more revenues in form of increased income tax.