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Swedish government reveals plans to overhaul work permit system

The Swedish government has announced plans to update systems affecting international workers, including by introducing a new 'talent visa', after an opposition party put forward its own proposals earlier this week.

Published: 6 February 2020 13:36 CET
Swedish government reveals plans to overhaul work permit system
Justice and Migration Minister Morgan Johansson. Photo: Lars Schröder / TT

The government said that an inquiry would be launched to review the Swedish labour immigration system, with the dual aim of “attracting international expertise and counteracting the exploitation of labour migrants”.

“We should be utilizing the expertise that is already there in our country. A new basis for residence permits should make it easier for people with key skills who want to look for work or start a business in Sweden,” said Finance and Housing Minister Per Bolund of the Green Party, the junior partner in the government coalition.

The inquiry would include looking into reviewing maintenance requirements for family members of work permit holders, and introducing a special visa for workers with skills that are particularly in-demand in Sweden.

Reader voices: 10 things Sweden should do to make life better for international talent

Catch up: Find all our coverage on work permit regulations and deportations here

This is part of an agreement made between the Social Democrat-Green Party government and the Centre and Liberal parties, whose support is needed for legislation to pass through parliament. 

They also pledged to solve the problem of work permit holder deportations over minor errors, without giving details on how this could be achieved.

If passed, some parts of the inquiry will result in a report to be presented in less than a year, no later than February 1st, 2021. The deadline for the remainder of the inquiry will be November 2021.

The opposition Moderate Party has criticized the plans, after an attempt earlier in the week to push through its own proposals on labour immigration. It's still unclear which set of plans will be voted through in parliament, with the Left Party potentially able to swing the vote.

One of the biggest differences between the government proposals and the Moderate Party's is that the government has proposed making it easier for rejected asylum seekers to apply for a work permit in certain cases, along with a risk analysis of such changes, while the Moderate Party had proposed putting a stop to this altogether.

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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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