Unpaid debts in Sweden have soared to unprecedented levels, but the predicted COVID-19 effect has not materialized, according to data released Tuesday by the Swedish Enforcement Authority.
The Enforcement Authority said in a press release that it received 1.2 million applications from creditors in 2020, an increase of 3.3 percent year-on-year. During the same period, the total amount of claims increased by 18 percent to 21.7 billion SEK (2.35 billion U.S. dollars).
Despite being the highest amount ever recorded in a year, it is not as much as the Enforcement Authority had predicted when the COVID-19 pandemic started.
"Our forecasts were bleak during the first months of the pandemic. Looking back at the 1990s crisis, we expected a similar development," said Johan Krantz, an analyst at the Enforcement Authority.
Rebecka Ohman, head of Unit Summary Proceedings at the Authority, said in the release that this rather slight increase showed the predictions regarding the impact of the pandemic have so far been unfounded.
"This suggests that those who already had problems paying incurred more and larger debts."
Also, despite many young adults having faced problems entering the job market or lost their jobs during the pandemic, the number of debts among people aged 18 to 25 ending up with the Authority did not increase in 2020.
The statistics also revealed a gender difference. While the number of indebted young males increased slightly compared with before the pandemic, it decreased among young women. (1 SEK = 8.40 U.S. dollars)
