The Social Democrat government's perceived failure to reduce unemployment was a major issue in the campaign, especially considering the good performance of the Swedish economy (when compared with that of the rest of Europe). The opposition also argued that "real" unemployment was much higher than the official figure of 4.8% (as of May 2006). They quoted a figure of 1,037,000 (or 17.9% of the labour force in January 2006) for those who are "outside the labour market because they do not have a job or are studying". If those who are "wholly or partially outside the labour market" are included then the figure rises to 1,700,000. This gloomy view of the unemployment situation was raised by Jan Edling, a former economist for the Swedish Trade Union Confederation ("LO"). However, compared with other OECD countries Sweden has a low "broad unemployment", as was pointed out by the Green Party's Peter Eriksson in the debate.