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More jobs going to foreigners in Sweden

Increasing numbers of new jobs are going to people born outside of Sweden, as the country’s native working population continues to shrink, new figures have shown.

Published: 28 July 2015 17:30 CEST
More jobs going to foreigners in Sweden
The number of immigrants getting jobs in Sweden has increased from 11,200 in January to 16,800 in June. Photo: Henrik Trygg/imagebank.sweden.se

The number of immigrants getting jobs in Sweden increased from 11,200 in January to 16,800 in June, figures from Sweden’s Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) showed on Tuesday.

One explanation for the increased demand for foreign-born workers is the decrease in the number of native Swedes between the age of 16 and 64.

Since 2008, the Swedish-born portion of the working population has shrunk by about 22,000 people per year.

“The supply of native-born people is smaller. Therefore, the new jobs mainly go to foreign-born people,” explained Johan Bissman, the head of unit at Sweden’s Employment Service.

DEBATE: 'Immigrants could be Sweden's top resource'

The demand for foreign workers is particularly high in Sweden’s service sector.

“It is very clear in our service industries, such as property maintenance, cleaning services and home services. They (these industries) survive because there are people from other countries to recruit. Without them, the sectors are not able to function,” Ulf Lindberg from the employers’ organization Almega told Swedish news agency TT on Tuesday.

However, the demand for foreign workers is not limited to low-skilled jobs.

“Both economists and engineers are in short supply,” Lindberg said. “Therefore there is a great demand for foreign graduates. We have been bad at getting them, but we’ve got better at it.” 

IT consultants are the largest group of labour migrants, with most coming from India, Russia and the former Eastern Bloc.

According to the Employment Service, the employment rate is now 64 percent among foreign-born people in Sweden. The figure is slightly higher for those with post-secondary education at 76 percent, showing an increase of five percentage points in ten years. For those born in Sweden the employment rate is 79 percent. 

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate among foreign-born people in Sweden is 22 percent, while the rate for those born in Sweden was found to be much lower at 7.5 percent in June. 

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WORKING IN SWEDEN

‘Reassess your cultural background’: Key tips for foreign job hunters in Sweden

Many foreigners living in Sweden want to stay in the country but struggle to find a job, despite having relevant qualifications. The Local spoke to three experts for their advice.

Published: 7 May 2024 09:00 CEST
'Reassess your cultural background': Key tips for foreign job hunters in Sweden

One international worker who found it hard to land her first job in Sweden is Amanda Herzog, who eventually founded Intertalents in Sweden with the aim of helping other immigrants find work in the country.

Herzog originally came to Sweden to study at Jönköping University and decided to stay after graduating.

“I thought it would take three months, maybe six months to find a job, I was prepared for that,” she told The Local during a live recording of our Sweden in Focus podcast held as part of Talent Talks, an afternoon of discussions at the Stockholm Business Region offices on how to attract and retain foreign workers in Sweden.

“What happened was it took over 13 months and 800 applications to actually get a job in my industry, within marketing.”

During this time, Herzog was getting multiple interviews a month, but was not getting any further in the process, despite showing her CV to Swedish recruiters for feedback.

“They were baffled as well,” she said. “By the time I landed my dream job, I had to go outside of the typical advice and experiment, and figure out how I actually can get hired. By the time I got hired, I realised what actually works isn’t really being taught.”

‘Reassess your cultural background’

Often, those who come to Herzog for help have sent out hundreds of CVs and are unsure what their next steps should be.

“My first piece of advice is to stop for a second,” she said. “Reassess your cultural background and how it fits into Sweden.”

Herzog, for example, discovered she was interviewing in “the American way”.

In the US, when asked to tell an interviewer about yourself, you’d be expected to discuss your career history – how many people have you managed? Did sales improve while you were working there? – while Swedes are more likely to want to know about you as a person and why you want to work in a specific role for their company in particular.

“A lot of people don’t know this, so imagine all of the other cultural things that they’re doing differently that they learned in their country is normal,” Herzog adds.

“Just start with learning, because it could be that you don’t need to change very much, you are qualified, you just need to connect with the Swedish way of doing things.”

 
 
 
 
 
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Networking is important

“Don’t hesitate to reach out for help and guidance,” said Laureline Vallée, an environmental engineer from France who recently found a job in Sweden after moving here nine months ago with her partner, who got a job as a postdoc at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

“You tend to insulate yourself and consider yourself not capable, but you’re not less capable than you were in your home country, you just need to explain it to the employers.”

Another tip is to network as much as you can, Vallée said.

“Networking is really important here in Sweden, so just go for it, connect with people in the same field.”

This could be through networks like Stockholm Akademiska Forum’s Dual Career Network, which helps the accompanying partners or spouses of foreign workers find a job in Sweden, or through other connections, like neighbours, friends, or people you meet through hobbies, for example.

Make a clear profile for yourself

Another common issue is that applicants are not presenting themselves clearly to recruiters, Stockholm Akademiska Forum’s CEO, Maria Fogelström Kylberg, told The Local.

“If you’re sending 600 applications without an answer, something is wrong. We have seen many people looking for jobs working in a supermarket, and the next application is a managing director post,” she said. “You have to decide ‘who am I? What do I want to do?’, you have to profile yourself in a clear way.”

This could be editing down your CV so you’re not rejected for being overqualified, or just thinking more closely about how you present yourself to a prospective employer.

“Which of my skills are transferable? How can I be of use to this company? Not what they can do for me, but what problem can I solve with my competence?”

Job hunters should also not be afraid of applying for a job which lists Swedish as a requirement in the job description, Fogelström Kylberg said.

“Sometimes if I see an ad for a job and I have a perfect candidate in front of me, I call the company and say ‘I have a perfect candidate, but you need them to speak Swedish’, they then say ‘no, that’s not so important’. This is not so unusual at all so don’t be afraid of calling them to say ‘do I really need perfect Swedish?’”

Listen to the full interview with Maria Fogelström Kylberg, Amanda Herzog and Laureline Vallée in The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

Interview by Paul O’Mahony, article by Becky Waterton

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