SWEDEN: THE ROLE OF THE STATE IN THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

• Author: Johansson, Ylva
• Position: Interview

Sweden is leading global efforts to shape the transition to a new era of digitalization and disruptive technologies associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Journal of International Affairs spoke to Ylva Johansson, Sweden's Minister for Employment and Integration, about emerging challenges for labor markets and social-welfare models, as well as the necessary governance arrangements to confront these. This interview took place on 8 October 2018 and has been edited for clarity and length.

Journal of International Affairs (JIA): Minister Johansson, Sweden has achieved under your leadership a win-win situation through broad agreement between social partners (i) to meet the needs of the evolving world of work. What role do governments, employers, workers, and the education system play as we adapt to the future?

Minister Ylva Johansson (YJ): Sweden has, by international comparison, been quite successful in this regard. Two important factors drive this: first, we have strong social partners. They have huge responsibilities and are thus able to regulate considerable parts of the Swedish labor market by themselves. The agreements they negotiate are fully supported by the government and the rest of society.

Second, we reached an agreement a long time ago that Sweden should be a competitive economy: we should protect neither industries, nor jobs. We should protect workers.

This means that while we should not rush to structural reforms, we should at least not say no to them. The Swedish Government supports the labor market becoming more competitive and able to quickly adapt to new technology. It is part of the political responsibility of our government to redistribute wealth and revenue generated by this competitive economy through the welfare state so that everybody can benefit. This way, we have reached a situation where union leaders welcome new technology. They sometimes even say they are more afraid of old than new technologies, because they are afraid of being weak compared to the international competition. This means that, even if some industry jobs disappear, the different social partners know they have to invest upfront so that new jobs and new industries can emerge. The government has to make sure that we protect individuals so that those who lose their job will not be poor and out of the labor market. It is both about protecting them economically and ensuring an active labor market policy to help people transfer to other jobs.

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