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IMMIGRATION

Migrant workers reportedly among victims of fatal elevator crash in Stockholm

The five people who died this week when a construction elevator crashed 20 metres to the ground in Sundbyberg, north of Stockholm, came from Sweden, Russia, Ukraine and Afghanistan, writes Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

Migrant workers reportedly among victims of fatal elevator crash in Stockholm
An elevator crashed 20 metres at a construction site in Sundbyberg on Monday. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

Relatives named one of the victims as Anton Runsvik, 26, from Sundsvall.

“Anton had the biggest heart both on and off the rink. He was a humble, kind and calm guy, wise and mature for his age,” Aftonbladet quotes his local floorball club as writing.

The names of the other four have not been publicly revealed and they are still being formally identified, but Aftonbladet reports that there’s much that indicates that one of them was a young man from Afghanistan, who arrived as a child refugee a decade ago.

“He’s been working in the building industry and is now missing. Police have retrieved DNA samples from his apartment, among other things from his toothbrush,” an unnamed source told the tabloid.

A Russian national in his 50s, who first came to Sweden in 2011 and received a Swedish residence permit in 2017, is also believed to have died.

“He loved his work and liked Sweden a lot,” a friend of his told Aftonbladet.

The other two men came from Ukraine, according to the syndicalist trade union SAC.

“We have more than 300 Russian-speaking construction workers among our members. Immigrants are not valued as Swedes when it comes to salary, security or safety. If a Swedish builder earns 200 kronor an hour, an immigrant earns 95 kronor,” Pamela Otarola of SAC Stockholm told Aftonbladet.

“Ukrainian builders have been exploited for many years in Sweden. They arrived even before the war and sometimes work without food and pay.”

The construction elevator collapsed at a site for a 14-storey apartment building on Monday morning. Investigations are under way to determine what caused the accident and whether anyone should be held responsible. Some 50 builders were working at the site.

The victims were working for a subcontractor to the main construction company Andersson Company.

A total of 52 people have died in workplace-related accidents in Sweden in 2023, the highest number in a decade.

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WORK PERMITS

Is Sweden meeting its 30-day work permit target for high-skilled foreigners?

Three months after the Swedish Migration Agency rolled out a new system for work permits, how long are highly qualified foreign professionals having to wait for a decision?

Is Sweden meeting its 30-day work permit target for high-skilled foreigners?

More than 7,750 work permit applications have been submitted to Sweden’s Migration Agency since a new system designed to speed up waiting times for skilled workers was implemented.

The new system, rolled out on January 29th, divides workers into four different categories depending on their profession. It was introduced after complaints about long waits for both first-time and renewed work permits and promised to process the top category, “A”, within 30 days.

Category A applications are those already classified as “highly qualified” under the Standard for Swedish Classification of Occupations (SSYK), and include leadership roles, roles requiring higher university education, and roles requiring university education or equivalent.

A Migration Agency spokesperson told The Local that a total of 95 percent of complete work permit applications sent in by highly qualified workers since January 29th were processed within 30 days, with a median handling time of 14 days, according to figures from April 15th.

“Our ambition is to decide cases for highly qualified labour within 30 days – sometimes it happens that the application isn’t complete and that can make the processing time longer,” the spokesperson said.

By mid-April, the Migration Agency had processed 4,461 complete applications, 550 incomplete applications and 423 applications for permanent residency which were complete but had to wait for a decision because the applicant’s previous permit hadn’t yet expired.

Around 77 percent of incomplete applications were processed within 30 days.

A Migration Agency spokesperson told The Local that there may be various reasons why an application is incomplete, but “common mistakes” include passports lacking a signature, incorrect information about accommodation when needed, no or not enough information about the applicant’s insurances, or no statement from the trade union about working conditions.

The spokesperson also said that the four percent of complete applications that didn’t get processed within a month were delayed because of, for example, the applicant failing to visit an embassy to show their passport before the deadline, having a criminal record in Sweden that required further investigation of their application, or the security police blocking their application.

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