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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Impact of new work permit law is bigger than anyone has foreseen

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren writes about the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 14 October 2023 09:30 CEST
Inside Sweden: Impact of new work permit law is bigger than anyone has foreseen
Ana Surguladze, spokesperson for the Work Permit Holders Association, at a demonstration in Sundbyberg on October 11th 2023. Photo: Paul O'Mahony/The Local

Hej,

This week we’ve been working a lot on the story of how Sweden’s soon-to-be-raised salary requirement for work permit holders is going to affect thousands of foreigners already living and working in the country.

The impact of this may be bigger than anyone has foreseen. For every work permit holder losing their right to stay in Sweden, there’s a company losing a worker. The country is losing a taxpayer. There are potentially family members who are no longer able to stay. There are foreigners who may not be directly affected, but worry that the goalposts may change for them too one day.

I wrote a LinkedIn post about it, but what I really want to do is get as many people as possible to read this article for which more than 200 people who will be directly affected by the new salary requirement shared their story. 

My colleague Paul O’Mahony also spoke to the Work Permit Holders Association, who formed a human chain outside a Migration Agency office to protest against the retroactivity of the new law, which also affects people who submitted their application ages ago but haven’t received an answer.

You can listen to his interviews on the latest episode of The Local’s Sweden in Focus podcast. Former education minister Anna Ekström happened to be a guest on this episode, so we also took the opportunity to ask for her thoughts.

The Work Permit Holders Association will hold a new demonstration at Mynttorget in central Stockholm on Sunday, October 15th, from 12-3pm.

Thank you to everyone for trusting The Local with your stories. It’s a privilege to be in touch with you all and to try to raise awareness in the Swedish public debate about the impact of law changes like these on foreign citizens.

In other news

Sweden has been running evacuation flights from the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, and as I’m writing this on Friday afternoon just hours before the next flight is set to take off, there’s not much I’m able to tell you at the moment about any future evacuation plans after that. 

The foreign ministry did confirm to The Local that evacuation would be available for both Swedish citizens and non-Swedes living in Sweden with valid permits or right of residence. Both groups will need to show valid travel documents. You can call the foreign ministry’s crisis number +46 (0) 8 405 19 00 if you need to evacuate, but you have to make your own way to the airport.

The Local’s Richard Orange this week spoke to the immigration spokesperson for the far-right Sweden Democrats after the government launched an inquiry into tightening asylum rules to the strictest level allowable under EU law.

Asked whether some of the changes his party wants to make would actually be legal under Swedish, let alone EU, law, he said: “Of course it’s possible. Why would we waste time on it if it wasn’t possible? We have a lot of stuff to do. It would make zero sense to work on something if it wasn’t legally possible.”

How Swedish are you? There’s talk about tightening rules for would-be citizens, but are politicians looking at the truly important things? The Local’s Becky Waterton had some fun with an alternative take on a Swedish citizenship test. Here’s the quiz, which should now be working after some tech glitches! 

A man was this week found guilty of hate crimes after he, among other things, burned a copy of the Quran. But this doesn’t mean Quran burning is always illegal, and the court found that it’s the context that matters. Here’s why.

Despite inflation dropping, experts still believe the Riksbank central bank is likely to hike Sweden’s key interest rate at its next meeting in November. Which is fun news for those of us who have been trying to sell our house for months without any success. Not speaking on behalf of any editors in particular.

Thanks for reading and have a good weekend,

Emma Löfgren

Editor, The Local Sweden

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members that gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to your inbox, by going to your newsletter preferences.

Member comments

  1. Can you not just call them the “Sweden Democrats” and not the “far right Sweden democrats”.
    The labelling exposes you as biased. They are the “Sweden Democrats”. Period. The far right is a label added by the media. Cut it out. You will have a better newspaper for it.

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For members

INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: What does Sweden Democrats’ election flop mean for foreigners?

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 15 June 2024 11:48 CEST
Inside Sweden: What does Sweden Democrats' election flop mean for foreigners?

Hej,

The far-right Sweden Democrats have had a week of reckoning after they lost votes in the EU election – the first time in the party’s history that it’s performed worse in a national or EU election than previous elections. Thus far it had always been on an upward trajectory, a trend that is now broken.

In some districts it saw voters’ support reduced by up to a third, and in Sölvesborg (the popular party leader Jimmie Åkesson’s home town) where support also fell, there was talk of organising crisis meetings.

Let’s not exaggerate what this means. The Sweden Democrats get to keep their three seats in the European Parliament, and voting patterns for the EU election are usually different from the national elections (the Greens performed almost three times better than in the last national election less than two years ago).

A major poll this week suggested that the Sweden Democrats would win 19.5 percent of the vote if an election were held today – one percentage point lower than its 2022 election result, but better than its 13 percent in the EU election.

It is still a member of Sweden’s ruling Tidö coalition and it’s hardly the only party in favour of stricter migration: the right-wing Moderates and Christian Democrats, and the centre-left Social Democrats have all had a hand in the tightening of rules that have impacted foreigners in Sweden in recent years.

But its poor performance does tell us something, which may have at least a small chance at influencing the Swedish political debate in the years ahead.

It suggests that the Sweden Democrats are less able than many thought at mobilising its potential voters. Its voters are generally sceptical of the EU and less keen to vote in the EU election, not even for the Sweden Democrats.

It suggests that Åkesson overplayed his hand when he wrote an opinion piece in the run-up to the election seeking to legitimise the concept of folkutbyte, a clear reference to the Great Replacement Theory that underpinned the deadly terror attack mounted by the Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik.

It suggests that the party played it wrong when it launched a verbal attack on TV4, refusing to apologise after the broadcaster revealed that the party operated a so-called troll factory. Perhaps the public thought showing just a little bit of contrition would have been a more appropriate reaction.

It suggests that peace, democracy, the climate and European cohesion – none of which are Sweden Democrat core issues – are important to voters.

And it rocks the boat for a party that perhaps for the first time failed at what it claims to do better than anyone else: gauging the mood of the nation.

What topics would you like The Local to cover?

It’s a challenging time for the media industry with volatile tech algorithms and advertising markets hitting even the biggest of newsrooms. That’s why I wrote a couple of weeks ago that it’s such a relief that our focus and number one resource here at The Local isn’t the tech giants, but our readers.

I’d like to take a moment to ensure that we’re continuing to meet your needs. Please fill out this survey to suggest stories we should cover in the year ahead.

In other news

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, according to new figures supplied to The Local.

There are plenty of things Sweden could do to help foreigners integrate, said The Local’s readers when we asked for their suggestions as to how the country could become more inclusive.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and India are the top investment destinations for Swedish companies, meaning that businesses are planning on increasing their investments in these markets over the next 12 months.

English speakers who don’t speak Swedish can currently only donate blood in Stockholm, but The Local has been told of plans to roll out the service to Gothenburg and Uppsala in the year ahead.

The year-on-year inflation rate fell to 3.7 percent in May, according to new figures from Statistics Sweden. This was less than expected.

Hundreds of British citizens are still battling rejected applications to stay in Sweden, nearly two and a half years after the deadline to apply for post-Brexit residency status. The Local spoke to four of them.

Sweden’s Migration Agency has sent an analysis to the EU Commission, in which it concludes that its near blanket refusal of late applications for post-Brexit residency has been ‘at the right level’ and is of ‘a high legal quality’.

The number of beaches in Sweden which are checked and graded is growing every year, making it easy to make sure that where you are swimming is clean and safe. These are the cleanest beaches in Sweden this summer.

From TV schedules to bars and cafes, here are your options for watching all matches of the Euro 2024 football tournament in Sweden.

Thanks for reading and have a good weekend!

Best wishes,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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