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Prime Minister promises more jobs for young

UPDATED: Social Democrat leader Stefan Löfven focussed on tackling youth unemployment and maintaining an open, liberal society in his first Almedalen speech since becoming Prime Minister.

Published: 29 June 2015 20:54 CEST
Prime Minister promises more jobs for young
Stefan Löfven making his keynote speech on Tuesday. Photo: TT

Stefan Lofven reiterated his pledge for Sweden to have the lowest jobless rate in Europe on Tuesday night as he promised to get more young people into work.

In his keynote speech at Almedalen (Sweden’s annual political conference week on the island of Gotland), the former welder argued that he wanted to improve opportunities for school leavers and to encourage Swedes to be “the best that you can be”.

He also discussed previous promises to expand training programmes to encourage more young people to enter Swedish industry and healthcare professions and said he would raise the salaries of the country's most talented teachers.

READ ALSO: The Local's live blog from day two of Almedalen

The Social Democrat leader also called on Sweden to develop its “strength in the global economy”, calling on Swedes to “join in and show that Swedish companies can astound the world”.

But he got his biggest cheers of the night when discussing tolerance and terrorism.

“If you love Sweden, stand up for everybody's liberty,” he told the crowd, scoring a spontaneous applause.

Löfven said that he wanted to reduce racism and sexual discrimination in Swedish workplaces and argued that the Islamist terror group Isis (also known as the Islamic State) could be beaten.

The Prime Minister’s speech came at a tough time for his party with several recent polls suggesting his the popularity of the Social Democrats has slipped since last September's general election.

In a major survey released by Novus for Swedish Radio's news programme Ekot on Monday, 40.9 percent of voters said they preferred the four centre-right opposition parties that make up Sweden's Alliance, while only 39.5 percent of those quizzed said they supported the Social Democrats, Green Party and Left Party.


Stefan Löfven speaking on Tuesday night. Photo: TT

But Löfven’s efforts were warmly greeted by party supporters at Almedalen.

“It was a good speech. We saw a Stefan Löfven who’s really growing into the role of prime minister and gave a clear message,” Adrian Ericson, Vice Group leader for the Social Democrats in Jönköping, and chairman for the Social Democrats’ youth movement in Jönköping county told The Local.

“The speech was anchored in debate. He tackled the problems of beggars, of Isis’s advance, but he also spoke of schools and unemployment,” he added.

“Stefan is very good when he talks about unemployment. You see that it’s close to his heart, he’s fired up by the issue. He spoke personally about our politics.”


Social Democrat supporter Adrian Ericson. Photo: The Local

READ ALSO: Almedalen – What you need to know about Sweden's power players week

Carina Ohlsson a member of the Swedish parliament and chairwoman of Social Democrat Women’s movement told The Local:

“I thought it was a very good speech, with lots of pathos and feeling. There was a lot about jobs and education, but he also took up the situation in the world…and how Sweden needs to be a country that stands up with solidarity to take in asylum seekers. It gives a signal to all of us here listening – but also to people out in the world – that we all, together need to show solidarity.”


Social Democrat politician Carina Ohlsson. Photo: The Local

But others criticised the Swedish leader for failing to surprise voters and sticking closely to previous speech themes and policy announcements.

“Old dusty speech. We live in the 2000s now,” wrote one commentator, HG, quoted on Swedish broadcaster SVT's website.

Meanwhile Ewa Stenberg, a leading political analyst for Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter argued that Löfven remained the country’s “most pressured” political figurehead.

“He has broken election promises and made mistakes, trust in him has fallen and the party's poll ratings have plummeted,” she noted.

Sweden's annual Almedalen conference continues on Tuesday and will run until the weekend.

The country's youngest political leader in history, Ebba Busch Thor will take to the stage on Tuesday evening, representing the smallest group in the Swedish parliament, the centre-right Christian Democrats.

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WORK PERMITS

Business leaders: Work permit threshold ‘has no place in Swedish labour model’

Sweden's main business group has attacked a proposal to exempt some jobs from a new minimum salary for work permits, saying it is "unacceptable" political interference in the labour model and risks seriously affecting national competitiveness.

Published: 25 April 2024 17:37 CEST
Updated: 26 April 2024 06:11 CEST
Business leaders: Work permit threshold 'has no place in Swedish labour model'

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise said in its response to the government’s consultation, submitted on Thursday afternoon, that it not only opposed the proposal to raise the minimum salary for a work permit to Sweden’s median salary (currently 34,200 kronor a month), but also opposed plans to exempt some professions from the higher threshold. 

“To place barriers in the way of talent recruitment by bringing in a highly political salary threshold in combination with labour market testing is going to worsen the conditions for Swedish enterprise in both the short and the long term, and risks leading to increased fraud and abuse,” the employer’s group said.   

The group, which represents businesses across most of Sweden’s industries, has been critical of the plans to further raise the salary threshold for work permits from the start, with the organisation’s deputy director general, Karin Johansson, telling The Local this week that more than half of those affected by the higher threshold would be skilled graduate recruits Swedish businesses sorely need.   

But the fact that it has not only rejected the higher salary threshold, but also the proposed system of exemptions, will nonetheless come as a blow to Sweden’s government, and particular the Moderate Party led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, which has long claimed to be the party of business. 

The confederation complained that the model proposed in the conclusions of the government inquiry published in February would give the government and political parties a powerful new role in setting salary conditions, undermining the country’s treasured system of collective bargaining. 

The proposal for the higher salary threshold, was, the confederation argued, “wrong in principle” and did “not belong in the Swedish labour market”. 

“That the state should decide on the minimum salary for certain foreign employees is an unacceptable interference in the Swedish collective bargaining model, where the parties [unions and employers] weigh up various needs and interested in negotiations,” it wrote. 

In addition, the confederation argued that the proposed system where the Sweden Public Employment Service and the Migration Agency draw up a list of exempted jobs, which would then be vetted by the government, signified the return of the old system of labour market testing which was abolished in 2008.

“The government agency-based labour market testing was scrapped because of it ineffectiveness, and because it was unreasonable that government agencies were given influence over company recruitment,” the confederation wrote. 

“The system meant long handling times, arbitrariness, uncertainty for employers and employees, as well as an indirect union veto,” it added. “Nothing suggests it will work better this time.” 

For a start, it said, the Public Employment Service’s list of professions was inexact and outdated, with only 179 professions listed, compared to 430 monitored by Statistics Sweden. This was particularly the case for new skilled roles within industries like battery manufacturing. 

“New professions or smaller professions are not caught up by the classification system, which among other things is going to make it harder to recruit in sectors which are important for the green industrial transition,” the confederation warned. 

Rather than implement the proposals outlined in the inquiry’s conclusions, it concluded, the government should instead begin work on a new national strategy for international recruitment. 

“Sweden instead needs a national strategy aimed at creating better conditions for Swedish businesses to be able to attract, recruit and retain international competence.”

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