Gross pay increased by 4.9 percent compared with the previous year and amounted to SEK 1 635 billion in 2016. Women's pay increased by 5.3 percent and men's pay increased by 4.5 percent.

In 2016, all counties showed increased number of gainfully employed people. The number of gainfully employed persons increased the most in Blekinge County, by 3.1 percent. Gross pay increased in Stockholm County, and along with Uppsala County increased the most, by 5.1 percent. The lowest gross pay increase was 2.8 percent, in Norrbotten County. Norrbotten County also had the smallest increase in the number of gainfully employed people, at 0.7 percent.

Employment intensity, the number of gainfully employed people in relation to the population, was 78.6 percent among people aged 20 to 64 years, which corresponds to an increase of 0.7 percentage points compared with the previous year. The share was higher among women (77.7 percent) than among men (79.5 percent). Employment intensity increased by 0.9 percentage points among women and by 0.5 percentage points among men.

Largest increase of gainfully employed in the industry Information and communication

The number of gainfully employed people increased most, 10.3 percent, in the Information and communication companies, and employed 179 000 people. Gross pay in these industries also increased most, 16.4 percent. An explanation of the big increases compared with the previous year is reclassification of NACE industry code of Ericsson AB. Most people worked in Human health and social work establishments, 812 000 people, followed by Trade, 582 000 people. The Agriculture, forestry and fishing reported the largest drops in the number of gainfully employed people, 4.6 percent. Gross pay in this industry also increased the least 1.5 percent. In the Mining, quarrying, manufacturing industry, the gross pay decreased by 1.7 percent compared to the previous year. This is partly explained by the reclassification of NACE industry code of Ericsson AB.

The distribution between the number of gainfully employed women and men was most even in Financial institutions and insurance companies – 51 percent women and 49 percent men. In that industry, women accounted for 40 percent and men for 60 percent of total gross pay. In the Hotels and food industry and Establishments for arts, entertainment and recreation; other service companies etc, gross pay was distributed evenly between the sexes. The proportion of gainfully employed women in the Human health and social work establishments was 80 percent. These women accounted for 75 percent of gross pay in the industry in total. In the Construction industry, where the proportion of gainfully employed men was 91 percent, men accounted for 91 percent of gross pay.

The next statistical news in this series will be published on 2018-11-29 at 09:30.