This essay is a quantitative study of Swedish municipal labour market policy. The essay uses methods and theoretical constructs from evaluation theory in general and policy evaluation I particular to assess whether the labour market policies and priorities of Swedish municipalities are effective in increasing labour market participation and decreasing dependency on social security handouts. The material used is statistic variables from all or most of Sweden municipalities relating to the costs, organisation, and prioritized methods of their respective labour market departments as well as results indicators in the form of statistics on employment, dependency on social welfare and entrance into the labour market. 

The correlations between these variables are calculated using the IBM SPSS statistics programme, which provides the essay with several statistically significant as well as statistically insignificant correlations. The statistically significant findings of the essay and thereby its overall results suggest that investments in adult education, lowered taxes, a competitive business climate, allowing private adult education providers, a focus on matching those unemployed towards the labour market, practise working in the private sector, active job-application initiatives and guidance counselling are the key pieces of municipal labour market policy. Combined with an organisation of the labour market units of the municipalities together with its units for financial aid and integration of immigrants, these policies and priorities seem to generally amount to a better situation on the local labour market.