Debate: Don't expel our experts

Labor immigration can solve major problems for Swedish companies that have difficulty finding the right skills. But the proposals now put forward risk exacerbating the problem of deportations and personal tragedies for labor immigrants, writes IT&Telekomföretagen together with 24 other representatives of organizations and companies in SvD today.

Every year, labor immigration contributes SEK 10 billion to Swedish production. The need for more labor migrants is great. Yet Sweden's starting point seems to be to restrict rather than encourage - and the biggest loser in that is ourselves.

Almost in parallel with Minister for Enterprise and Innovation Mikael Damberg (S) and LO President Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson's statements on labor immigration in DN Debatt on February 13, the consultation period for the report Strengthening the position of labor immigrants in the labor market expired. Damberg's and Thorwaldsson's ideas about returning to an old and for the business community destructive labor market test has been criticized in several lines.

Perhaps most surprising, however, is that Damberg is putting forward proposals with no connection to either the directives or the results of the inquiry presented by his government. Except, perhaps, that both the announcement and the report reflect an underlying negative view of labor immigration and a distrust of companies' ability to offer good working conditions.

One aspect of the report - a proposal to enable employers to avoid being penalized if they correct mistakes made on their own initiative - departs from this negative basic view. In addition, we do not see in the report entitled Strengthening the position of immigrant workers in the labor market much of what we, like large parts of the Swedish business community with a need for skills and great difficulty in recruiting, have asked for to solve the acute problem of expulsions of sought-after labor. Rather, there is a great risk that, if the proposals are adopted, we will expose labor migrants to even greater personal tragedies and make it more difficult for employers who depend on their skills to continue operating in Sweden.

The investigation:

• Lack of discussion of, or suggestions for improvements to, the wording in the Aliens Act that prevents holistic or reasonableness assessments from being made in the event of minor deviations from the conditions (permits "shall" be revoked in the event of deviation, rather than "may" or "may not").
• Suggests introducing imprisonment of up to one year as the standard penalty for non-compliant employers.
• Proposes to shorten to a maximum of three months the period during which a migrant worker must have started work after being granted a permit, or have found a new job if employment has ended.

We ask instead:

• Enables holistic assessments from the migrant worker's perspective 

In the Migration Agency's post-clearance checks, the slightest deviation from a collective agreement at any time during the permit period leads to deportation. This may involve an insurance policy that was impossible to take out during the first month of the permit period because the worker had not had time to obtain a social security number.

In its assessment, the Migration Agency must base the law on what applies "in collective agreements or practices in the industry or profession". But collective agreements strictly govern the assessment, which creates problems because the labor market is regulated by thousands of collective agreements and a large proportion of companies in the IT industry, for example, have other contractual solutions than collective agreements.

We believe that case law must be available to employers and comprehensive assessments are required. Otherwise, labor migrants risk being deported on unclear grounds. Permits should be granted if, based on an overall assessment, the migrant worker has equal or better conditions than their Swedish colleagues. In addition, permits should not be withdrawn if individual deviations do not make conditions significantly worse than the average for the industry or profession.

• Limit penalties to cases where there was clear intent to circumvent the law

As it is impossible in practice to determine what constitutes the 'right' condition in each individual case, it is unreasonable to have imprisonment as the default sanction for non-compliance. It sends out devastating signals to employers who are in dire need of labor in shortage areas.

Penalties should be clearly limited to cases where the overall conditions are significantly below those applicable in the sector concerned, or where employers and migrant workers, through sham employment or otherwise, clearly seek to circumvent the rules.

• Make the Migration Agency a service authority - for real

If the care of the labor immigrant is real, it should be an obvious requirement for the Migration Agency to provide full service to employers to facilitate labor immigration. There is an overall benefit from having more fully educated, tax-paying labor immigrants who contribute growth and innovation to our country.

In November 2016, a unanimous Riksdag made an important decision: to give the aforementioned inquiry an additional directive to investigate the extent to which labor migrants are denied work permits due to unconscious deviations from employers, that case law should be reviewed and that urgent measures were required to prevent more cases of deportations. Unfortunately, Parliament's decision was ignored by the government, and we see that the committee's proposal puts another wet blanket over labor immigration.

At the same time, problems with deportations are escalating, affecting both individuals and Sweden, which needs labor migrants more than it needs us. Take our three demands into account: they are a prerequisite for a well-functioning labor immigration system to become a reality!

Anne-Marie Fransson, Director of the Swedish IT & Telecom Association
Maria Rankka, CEO Stockholm Chamber of Commerce
Anna-Karin Hatt, CEO Almega
Günther Mårder, CEO Företagarna
Sergio de Brito, CEO Sogeti Sweden
Lars Kry, CEO Sigma IT Consulting
Leendert Venema, CEO Capgemini Nordics
Henrik Tjärnström, CEO Kindred Group (formerly Unibet Group)
Per Helin, Founder and Deputy CEO Publit
Johan Johansson, CEO 3
Per Johanson, CEO Tieto
Glenn Arnesen, CEO IFS Scandinavia
Carl-Johan Hamilton, Deputy CEO Ants, Chairman of the IT & Telecom Companies' IT Competence Council
Ulrik Bengtsson, CEO Betsson
Frederic Laziou, CEO Tacton Systems
Katarina Berg, Chief HR Officer, Spotify
Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam, Founders Truecaller
Dinesh Nayar, CEO and Founder Fyndiq
Jacob de Geer, CEO and Co-Founder Izettle
Axel Kling, CEO Snow Software
Fredrik Wetterhall, Founder and CEO Optolexia
Oscar Hedlund, CEO Comparo
Nils Bildt, Chairman Teleopti
Martin Jacobson, CEO and Founder Supertext
Henrik Eskilsson, Founder and CEO Tobii