🇸🇪 Sweden

Median age 41.1 — mid-pack for the EU, but TFR has fallen from 2.0 in 2010 to ~1.5 today and trending lower. Sweden is a receiving country for refugees and some skilled migrants, which masks but does not solve the structural shortfall. Youth unemployment at 23% is the worst in modern Swedish history and rising — partly the standard Nordic 'activation' statistical trick (students, military, NEETs counted differently), but the trend is real and accelerating. The old-age dependency ratio of 33.4% will cross 40% before 2040, and the public sector payroll that 'employs' much of the immigrant and female labour force is exactly what AI is about to hollow out.

Sweden has a national AI strategy but it reads like a LinkedIn post: 'innovate, collaborate, lead.' The Kristersson government has actually CUT active labour market retraining budgets (omställningsstöd) while handing billions in subsidies to battery and AI investments. There is no strategy for the 30% of the workforce in the public sector whose jobs are textbook AI targets — clerks, administrators, social-services case workers. Klarna's public AI 'replacement' followed by rehiring was treated as a punchline rather than a warning.