Many restaurants, shops and other service providers like dentists, doctors and health care centers are closed on Sundays, during public holidays, and some on weekday evenings. There are 2 main reasons:

1. It is too expensive when the unions demand that staff be paid 50% and 100% extra wages.

2. Various authorities restrict opening hours of shops based on some logic that few understand.

The official number of people without work is some 300 000, of which young people are 30 000. These numbers do not include people who have left the workforce, nor do they include the many thousands that could join the workforce. Compared to Sweden, we have another 180 000 who could join the workforce!

It would be nice to have a working service sector where we can shop and eat every day when we want. Tourists also want to enjoy the same services at weekends and public holidays, but “I know best” from the trade unions and paternalistic authorities puts a stop to that.

The same story is repeated from my colleagues in small companies – they cannot employ more people at weekends and in the evenings because it costs too much.

With 300 000 people looking for work, an increase from last year, I would have thought that simple changes should be made pretty fast…