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The refugee wave of fall 2015 has no equivalent. A total of 163,000 asylum seekers arrived in Sweden during the year, which was almost double the number before in one year.
Five years later, 96,000 of the asylum seekers in 2015 received protection, of which around 60,000 received a permanent residence permit.
But how has the job market fared? How many have so far gotten a job and their own livelihood?
Of people between the ages of 20 and 64, a total of about 35,400 people, just over half had earned income at some point in 2019, according to preliminary statistics from Statistics Sweden (SCB) produced by TT.
This can be compared to 11,900 who receive financial assistance from the municipality, as many receive support from the labor market, almost 10,000 receive parental benefits, and 8,700 receive scholarships.
Small sums
Almost 16,000 still had a settlement grant, money that newcomers can receive for up to two years after receiving a residence permit.
There is an overlap in the statistics, since a person during a year can have income of various types, both income from work and various types of benefits.
In total, just over half of the refugees’ income came from work. But these are small sums, on average around SEK 100,000 per year. Women earn considerably less than men: about 52,000 versus about 129,000 crowns.
There is also a group – almost 15,000 people – who had no income from work during the year.
The statistics do not show the year in which people were granted asylum, which is the time when the doors to the labor market often open. So some may have had much less time than four years to find a job.
But the fact that a higher proportion do not have a job after this time should be considered a failure, says Johan Eklund, a professor at Blekinge University of Technology and CEO of the Entrepreneurship Forum.
– I’m not willing to point a finger in any direction on whose failure it is. But as an economist, I react to the fact that there are thousands of people of working age who have no income, he says.
Long time for self-reliance
In general, those born abroad are more unemployed and fewer employed than those born in Sweden. Becoming self-reliant can take a long time, as a study by Johan Eklund shows. Of all those who received a residence permit in Sweden (regardless of the reason) between 1990 and 2016, only half were self-sufficient after 12 to 13 years.
– It is difficult to enter the Swedish labor market. These are high thresholds, we have high starting salaries and a job market that places quite high demands on skills and knowledge, says Johan Eklund.
The slow entry process is a problem for both society and the individual, he believes.
– For society, this means a burden. Reliance on grants is a socioeconomic cost. So the question is also what happens to individuals who are not involved in society? This group does not have an average fat existence.
“We would have liked to keep them”
The Västmanland Mill was one of the communities that became a symbol of Sweden’s great asylum reception center. In 2015, the municipality, with approximately 5,800 inhabitants, received just over 900 refugees. Today, many of those who have received a residence permit have applied for more from Norberg, which Johanna Odö regrets.
– We would have liked them to be left in our municipality. We want to be more Norwegian, that’s all.
Among those who applied for the largest cities were many with qualified education. What was left was a group that is generally more difficult to match with the job market.
– The problem is usually that the language is not enough. There may be different types of obstacles in the background, it can be entire families who are illiterate or people who have no training, he says.
There are also positive signs in Statistics Sweden. It confirms a trend in previous studies that refugees seem to get to work faster.
