International Organization for Migration (IOM)

(TUCW, 2012). The work permit is connected to a work place and if migrant workers
lose their job they have three months to find another, which might be difficult since
many of them do not speak Swedish nor have any knowledge of the Swedish system.
Employers take advantage of people’s fear of being sent home early, and this fear is
increased by the fact that many of the labour migrants have borrowed money and are
deeply in debt when arriving to Sweden (HRF, 2012).
In sectors of the labour market where there have been frequent reports of abuse,
new rules have been set up by the Migration Board. 84 Those employers must now
show that they can pay salaries to the worker for at least three months. Recurring
companies must also show tax account statements for the previous three months.
In these sectors, dominated by small businesses, the new rules create increased
bureaucracy. However, the rules seem to have had an effect and removed the worst
cases of abuse (GC, 2012).
One sector where the Migration Board introduced special controls was the berrypicking
industry prior to the 2011 season. The new requirements included among
other things the necessity to provide the workers with information. Previously, many
berry pickers had limited information about the rules and their rights, which led to
recurrent reports of berry pickers lured to Sweden with promises of good benefits but
having to go home in debt.
Although the Migration Board has gradually tightened its controls to prevent abuse
of the rules, the government has not introduced any legislative changes to allow
for systematic controls of working conditions or sanctions against employers who
break the rules. Unions have demanded that the employment offer provided to the
Migration Board becomes binding but the government wants to leave it up to the
employer and employee to negotiate the employment terms (HRF, 2012).
To sum up, the increase of irregular employment is not caused by an inflexible or
complicated labour migration system. It is rather the opposite. Employers in sectors
without any obvious need to look for workers outside of Sweden and the EU are in
many cases abusing the liberal rules to hire third-country nationals for lower wages
and worse working conditions than what is legal in Sweden.
Recruitment/Matching
The Swedish policy for labour immigration incorporates no component of matching
employees with occupations where there is a labour shortage. The Swedish state
or state agencies have not entered into any bilateral agreements concerning labour
immigration. There is no place for such arrangements in a system based on individual
employers’ labour demand. Nor are there any special quotas or organized predeparture
training. The only bilateral agreements are international student exchange
programmes with Canada, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
84 From January 2012 in the sectors: cleaning, hotel and restaurant, construction, retail, agriculture and
forestry, auto repair, services, and staffing.
country studIes – SWEDEN
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