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Sweden expects fewer labour migrants and refugees this year despite crisis

The number of refugees seeking protection in Europe rose by almost 30 percent in the first half of this year, but Sweden expects fewer refugees – and fewer labour migrants – to move to the country in 2023 and 2024.

Published: 23 October 2023 13:44 CEST

Sweden expects fewer labour migrants and refugees this year despite crisis

Migration Agency offices in Sundsvall. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

The number of people applying for work permits in Sweden is expected to drop over the next two years. The Migration Agency predicts in a new prognosis that it will receive around 49,000 first-time work permit applications this year, compared to just under 65,000 in 2022.

The agency puts the decrease in work permit applications down to a worsening labour market.

“According to the Public Employment Service, multiple indicators point to the labour market becoming weaker, while the National Institute of Economic Research expects the period of low growth to deepen next year,” the Migration Agency writes in its prognosis.

It also writes that the latest figure takes into account the potential effect of the new work permit threshold on work permits, which will more than double the required salary for work permits at the end of this month.

“The prognosis also considers, as before, the increase in the work permit threshold due to come into force on November 1st, 2023.”

Fewer asylum seekers despite increase across EU

The agency also predicts that 13,000 people will seek asylum in Sweden this year, with the same prediction for 2024.

Previous predictions were slightly higher at 14,000 applicants.

If the new prognosis is correct, it would represent a considerable drop since last year, when 16,700 people came to Sweden seeking asylum.

In Europe overall, the number of asylum seekers has reached a new record – over half a million in the first half of the year, which is an increase of almost 30 percent compared to the same period last year, as well as the highest figure since the 2015 refugee crisis.

Almost 75 percent of people seeking asylum in Sweden are rejected and issued orders to leave. The agency expects 4,300 asylum seekers will leave Sweden of their own accord this year, and around 3,800 next year.

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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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