Email comment on our debate article on the Employment Service's shortcomings: "Don't give up!"

Today, the debate article "Smart solution, but nothing happens at AF" was published on SvD Brännpunkt, where I, together with colleagues at Stockholm University's Department of Computer and Systems Science, express strong criticism of the Swedish Public Employment Service's overall organization. This has, among other things, led to initiatives from universities and the industry to get foreign-born people with academic skills to quickly enter the labor market, have completely stalled.

We have received a number of encouraging comments, and I would like to give special mention to an email we received from Lena Månsson, a copywriter. The email, which I quote in its entirety, clearly shows that these are issues that concern flesh and blood people, and not just political discussions of a general nature:

"Thank you for an excellent opinion piece in SvD today! And for your important work.

My housemate, who works as a substitute teacher in both the SFI and the activity known as vocational Swedish, meets extremely ambitious people from all over the world every day. He is concerned about the seemingly random placement of students - illiterate people are mixed with the highly educated, those with language difficulties are mixed with those who have a good knowledge of Swedish. There seems to be no analysis or needs assessment before sending refugees and migrants to different language courses. It seems to be just a matter of placing them somewhere to make it look good in the statistics.

The will to succeed in Sweden exists in so many people! Unfortunately, it is slowly but surely being ground down by the inability of the employment service and the government to create sensible solutions that quickly lead to progress. With a customized and targeted language training in the back, more people can quickly get into work or further education. Regardless of basic conditions.

So don't give up! Sweden and all the people who come here to make a new life need your commitment and your voices.

With warm greetings

/Lena Månsson"