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IMMIGRATION

Sweden needs immigrants to solve labour shortage: employment agency

Sweden requires 64,000 immigrants annually if it wants to prevent labour shortages from hampering economic growth, the country's employment agency (Arbetsförmedlingen) has said.

Published: 6 December 2016 10:35 CET
Updated: 6 December 2016 17:00 CET
Sweden needs immigrants to solve labour shortage: employment agency
An employment agency sign advertising available jobs. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

Speaking to public broadcaster SVT, the agency’s director general Mikael Sjöberg predicted that a labour shortage will start to hurt Sweden’s growth as early as next year, before becoming an increasing problem thereafter, as employers in the private and public sector struggle to find people with the right skills.

A decreasing local-born population means immigration will be needed to solve the shortage, the agency explained.

“Sweden’s birth rate is simply too low. The home-born population is reducing. To continue having the possibility of growing further, labour is needed, and therefore an increased population,” Johan Bissman from Arbetsförmedlingen told The Local.

The impact is already being felt by some companies, he noted, and the problem will grow in 2017.

“The shortage is already impacting the public sector and more businesses are going to feel the effects in 2017. A number of private companies are also affected currently, and that number is going to grow next year,” Bissman said.

“For the public sector the shortage means that the standard of service they provide is lowered, for example through lengthened processing times. For private companies, the shortage can lead to losing orders.”

Reducing the number of people leaving upper secondary school (gymnasium) before finishing their course and raising the retirement age (61-67, but traditionally 65) are ways to help alleviate the situation according to the employment agency, but it emphasized that immigration will still be needed for a long-term solution.

Part of the reason for Sweden’s situation is that the demand for goods and services has remained high as the country escaped relatively unscathed from the global economic crisis compared to other nations, the agency observed.

“It’s a complex situation. Sweden was well positioned in the economic crisis while other countries found developments more difficult. We recovered from it faster and therefore also found it easier to increase our rate of production,” Bissman said.

“Household consumption stood strong, which has an effect on demand. A weak krona has been and is good for the export industry as well as hospitality,” he added.

READ ALSO: Unemployment up for foreigners in Sweden

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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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