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IMMIGRATION

MAP: Where do Indian citizens live in Sweden?

Sweden is home to a thriving Indian community that has grown considerably in recent years. So where are they all living?

Published: 22 August 2023 15:43 CEST
Updated: 27 August 2023 08:08 CEST
MAP: Where do Indian citizens live in Sweden?
Workers at Saab's factory in Linköping work on a Saab Gripen E fighter jet. Photo: Axel Hilleskog/SvD/TT

There are now 53,000 Indian-born people living in Sweden, meaning they now outnumber the 40,277 Norwegians and 38,070 Danes living in the country, and are almost neck and neck with the 55,642 people born in Germany. 

Unsurprisingly, Indians are concentrated in and around Sweden’s big cities, with nearly 9,700 living in the City of Stockholm, and nearly double that if you add in the neighbouring municipalities of Solna, Sollentuna, Järfalla, Huddinge, Sundbyberg, and Botkyrka. 

There are 9,400 living in Gothenburg Municipality and 2,192 in the City of Malmö. 

There are also clusters in smaller cities, however, driven by local businesses employing Indian IT workers. There 700 Indians living in Älmhult, where Ikea is headquartered, 2,202 based in Helsingborg, where Ikea bases much of its IT development, and about 1,000 living in Linköping, the headquarters of Saab Aerospace. 

Perhaps more surprising than how concentrated Indians are is how widely spread out they also seem to be. There is at least one Indian-born person registered as living in all but four of Sweden’s 290 municipalities (Bräcke in Jämtland, and Dorotea, Arvidsjaur, and Jokkmokk in icy northern Norrbotten, if you’re interested). 

Can the sole Indian citizen registered in Arjeplog get in touch? We’d love to hear about what you’re doing up there. 

Here are Sweden’s top ten municipalities in terms of the number of Indian residents: 

Member comments

  1. Hi,
    Just curious to know why thelocal decided to write special articles about Indians?

    Lot of IT guys from India are coming to Sweden these days encouraged by the visa sponsorship offered by big sweden companies.

    Thanks,
    Ravi

    1. Hi Ravi,

      This article in particular we’re hoping to do for other nationalities as well who are interested in seeing where their compatriots have ended up in Sweden. But we are also doing more articles aimed at our Indian readers, in particular for our monthly Indians in Sweden newsletter, which members can sign up for in their newsletter settings. We know that we have a lot of Indian readers, and many of them have told us in emails, comments and surveys that they would like more articles about the Indian community in Sweden.

      https://www.thelocal.se/tag/indians-in-sweden

      Thanks for the comment!

      Emma

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For members

WORK PERMITS

Swedish work permits rejected over salary threshold increase by almost 2,000 percent

The number of Swedish work permits rejected because the applicant’s salary is too low has increased by almost 2,000 percent since the country tightened the rules last year.

Published: 12 June 2024 15:27 CEST
Updated: 16 June 2024 08:24 CEST
Swedish work permits rejected over salary threshold increase by almost 2,000 percent

Sweden on November 1st, 2023, raised its work permit salary threshold from around 13,000 kronor a month to 80 percent of the median salary, currently 27,360 kronor.

This means that non-EU workers earning less than that aren’t eligible for a work permit.

According to new figures supplied to The Local by the Migration Agency, a total of 670 work permit applications since then (including 605 first-time applications and 65 renewals) have been denied because the applicant’s salary didn’t meet the new requirements.

That’s approximately an average of 96 rejections a month – up from fewer than five monthly rejections for the same reason in the seven months before November 1st.

Meanwhile, Sweden’s rejection rate of work permit renewals (for any reason) has almost doubled.

In the seven months before November, 3.47 percent of work permit renewals were rejected (588 out of 16,938 processed applications). That figure increased to a 6.39 percent rejection rate in the seven months after November (936 out of 14,642 processed applications).

The much higher rejection rate for first-time work permit applications also almost doubled in the same period, from 20 percent to 36 percent (or in other words: from 3,564 out of 17,096 processed applications to 4,462 out of 12,318 processed applications).

The higher salary threshold also applies to people who submitted their work permit application before November 1st, so it is not unlikely that the number will decrease in the future as more people choose not to apply at all because they know they won’t meet the requirements.

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Looking at both first-time applications and renewals, the top professions rejected over not meeting the salary threshold were cleaners and home service staff, fast-food staff and kitchen workers, and chefs and pantry chefs.

The nationalities that got the most rejections in the same months, i.e. November 2023 to and including May this year, were Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iraq and Mongolia.

Nothing has yet been decided, but there are plans in the pipeline to raise the salary threshold further, to the level of the full median salary, a move that has been criticised by leading business organisations, who argue it would block much-needed high-skilled talent from applying.

Editor’s note:

The figures show the number of decisions where “does not meet the salary requirement” was listed as the main reason for the rejection. There may in theory be more applications that didn’t meet the requirement, but which were rejected for primarily other reasons. Only employees are included in the figures (arbetstagare), i.e. not researchers, entrepreneurs or family members.

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