Migration Agency must make labor migration work

"I have been here for nine years and this is the first time I have attended a meeting with politicians and authorities where labor immigration could be discussed in English".

The words, translated into Swedish, are from Avinash Limaye, Sweden Director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which annually provides the Swedish labor market with more than a thousand international IT experts. The context was a recent breakfast seminar held at IT&Telekomföretagen on the theme "Integrating international skills to Sweden - the Indian perspective". Representatives of both Indian and Swedish IT companies, the Swedish Migration Board and members of parliament from the Social Democrats and the Moderates were invited to discuss opportunities and obstacles for Sweden to become a true talent destination.

The main messages from the invited IT company representatives were as follows:

Avinash Limaye: The application processes need to be much smoother. A particularly important issue concerns the permits for dependents. TCS would like them to be processed together with the initial work permit application. TCS would also like to see a solution like in Finland where the social security number is issued together with the work permit. In general, TCS and other international actors need much better transparency from, and a continuous dialog with, the Migration Agency. This applies to changes in forms, processes and legislation. This is important for companies to be able to plan their activities and also to improve Sweden's chances of attracting international excellence in the future.

Ricky Dhillon, CEO of recruitment and sourcing company Otivr: " It is important that the Swedish Migration Agency and other authorities understand that labor migration is a process with many steps. Applying for a permit is only one. Companies and labor migrants need smoothly functioning processes at all stages.

Anna Cardeberg, HR Manager at Episerver: " From a cultural perspective, Sweden is an attractive country to move to, but systems and policies need to become much more flexible. A particularly troublesome issue for Episerver is the long processing times for extension requests. These create a lot of anxiety for employees and extra work for HR managers.

Cecilia Borin from the Migration Agency's department for digitalization and development admitted that the processing processes have been too long. But she was also able to show figures showing that these have decreased in recent years. One piece of news for most people was that the Migration Agency, together with other authorities in the so-called eSam cooperation program, is developing Open Sweden. A digital tool for private individuals who move to Sweden.

Skills expulsions must stop

In the concluding discussion, Maria Malmer Stenegard, spokesperson for the Moderate Party on migration policy, stressed the importance of ending the so-called skills deportations, which is an issue to be investigated as part of the government's 73-point program. This led to a discussion with the Social Democrats' Rikard Larsson from the Social Security Committee. Larsson argued that the investigation should primarily identify whether there are any problems with the legislation at all. Lame, countered Malmer Stenegard.

What does the Swedish Migration Agency do?

Both MPs agreed that there was a need for a forum where practical issues concerning labor immigration could be discussed further. Something that is in line with what IT&Telecom companies also think. At the seminar, all participants had a good opportunity for dialog with the Migration Agency's representative and we from the industry now hope that the Migration Agency will take the lead for continued dialogue.