Debate: Authorities must see migration as a skill

Skills supply

Authorities need to help make Sweden a talent-attracting nation, instead of expelling skills, writes Fredrik von Essen, industrial policy expert at IT&Telecom companies.

In a report to be published in November, IT&Telekomföretagen estimates that there will be a shortage of 70,000 IT experts by 2022 if no special efforts are made. Among the report's proposals is that Sweden should become the number one talent-attracting nation.

Newcomers needed in the IT industry

The IT industry is both highly internationalized and rapidly changing, which presents both opportunities and challenges for newcomers. Among the opportunities, in addition to the industry's severe shortage of people, is that it is curious about anyone with a technical background and a working knowledge of English. Challenges include the fact that most recruitment is informal, through channels other than, for example, the Public Employment Service and job advertisements, and that most training and occupational roles are fluid and do not fit into any of the established templates used for, for example, validation and matching.

When it comes to foreign-born people's access to the Swedish IT labor market, we need to distinguish between the perspectives of labor migrants, who have come here through an already established employer contact, and others who have moved (or moved) here without a connection to the labor market.

First, a few lines about the latter. In 2016, as a result of the asylum wave, IT&Telekomföretagen made a number of efforts, both on its own and together with other organizations, to find asylum seekers and new arrivals with an IT or telecom background and match them with our member companies. Among other things, we conducted two "speeddatings" in collaboration with the Swedish Migration Agency.

Our experiences were as follows:

  • As long as we get the meetings right, we have a good chance of arranging an internship or employment.
  • However, reaching out with information to the group of asylum seekers/new arrivals is a major challenge. Neither the Migration Agency nor the Public Employment Service has any good registers where people with certain professional backgrounds can be easily reached.
  • An established profile on LinkedIn and a working knowledge of English are essential.
  • In the case of internships or employment, employers are faced with a lot of bureaucracy linked to bank accounts, driver's licenses, social security numbers, housing, etc.

Newly arrived skills are not a troublesome anomaly

What we realized above all was how the authorities across the board - not just the Swedish Migration Agency, but the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Swedish Tax Agency, the municipalities and others - regard newly arrived skills as a troublesome deviation for which they have no ready-made processes. The Swedish authorities must wake up from this national slumber and realize that digitalization and globalization are facts and that the flow of foreign labor is both a healthy and necessary normal state.

Damages the image of Sweden as a talent-attracting nation

When it comes to labor immigration, we have basically sound legislation based on the fact that everyone who has a clear job offer is welcome here. Unfortunately, due to both legislative and practical changes in recent years, there has been a devastating application of the law, where skilled and well-established labor immigrants have been deported due to trivial mistakes by current or former employers. All parties are struggling to bring about a change quickly, but it looks as if this will take until well into 2018. The damage to Sweden's image as a talent-attracting nation will be hard to repair, but it must be done.

Fredrik von Essen
Industrial policy expert, IT&Telecom companies