International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Improving Access to Labour market Information for migrants and employers
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largest company supplied over half of the workers, and the second largest about 25
per cent in 2011 (Wingborg and Fredén, 2011). Using Thai companies is necessary to
prevent the berry pickers from having to pay Swedish social security contributions.
However, it prevents the Swedish employers from controlling the recruitment, which
has meant that people are often recruited based on their personal connections to the
recruiters rather than their skills and experience (BP, 2012).
Also worth mentioning is a group of employers that recruits remarkably few labour
migrants. This group consists of SMEs with neither established networks in third
countries nor an international reputation. Finding people with the right skills in
other parts of the world requires a broad network and adequate knowledge, which
many small employers undoubtedly do not have. The difficulties in the matching
process represent one reason why not more Swedish employers recruit from third
countries (Employment Service, 2012e).
Certain international recruitment agencies are at an advantage and can more easily
match skills and employment. Some of the largest companies in the world are staffing
and recruitment companies such as Adecco, Randstad and Manpower (Andersson,
Joona and Wadensjö, 2011). One option could be for SMEs to use recruitment
agencies with larger networks to recruit from abroad. However, Swedish and
international recruitment companies do not seem to be very active in this market.
If the expertise they are looking for does not exist in Sweden the companies turn to
Europe but not further afield (Employment Service, 2012e). The smaller companies
that want to recruit from abroad cannot solely rely on recruitment companies or the
public channel of the Public Employment Service/EURES portal. Instead, they have
to use a variety of recruitment channels, such as Linked In, and sending recruiters
to the origin country, and as the statistics show very few of them are successful in
hiring from third countries (PES 1, 2012).
In conclusion, the matching of employers in Sweden with employees outside of
the EU takes place with almost no involvement from the Swedish state or Swedish
recruitment agencies. The only sector that uses recruitment agencies is the berrypicking
industry, where staffing companies in the workers’ origin country are used.
Thus, the employers who are able to hire workers from third countries are the ones
that have already existing networks; to a large extent this means multinational
companies, and employers from third countries.
2.2. Supply side: prospective migrants
Information issues for prospective migrants
The Migration Board’s website on work permits in English receives about 3.2 million
visits per year; the Swedish version of the same site has about the same amount of
hits, which suggests that both employees and employers use the Migration Board’s
website (MB, 2012). In addition to the Migration Board’s website, the Swedish
Institute has produced a website, which is aimed at potential labour migrants from
third countries (Si, 2012).