The wage requirement for labor immigrants should be increased to SEK 33,380, or 90 percent of the median salary, and it will be even more difficult for immigrants to get their family here. On Monday, October 6, the government presented its proposal for new sharpening of immigration policy. The proposal must be stopped. Our country is in a tough recession and growth is one of the EU’s lowest. Almost half a million Swedes are unemployed, while Swedish companies scream for competence. The recruitment problems are particularly large for the industry in northern Sweden, but the problems exist throughout the country.
According to the government, labor immigration needs to decrease, in order for companies to employ unemployed Swedes instead. It may sound logical, but unfortunately it does not work that way. Professional workers and highly educated experts cannot be replaced by any unemployed. Of course, there is the opportunity to train to better suit the companies’ need for labor. But education takes time and the companies need skills here and now. With the wage floor, the government has wanted to reduce in particular the low -skilled labor immigration. However, the new proposal for wage floors is so high that many newly graduated academics earn too little to come to Sweden and work.
Two years ago, the wage floor for labor immigrants was increased from SEK 13,000 to SEK 29,680 a month, 80 percent of the median salary, and when the investigation into further tightening was presented last year, the proposal was to raise the floor to 100 percent. Unsurprisingly, it led to major protests. “The increase in the wage floor means that almost half of today’s work permit will be withdrawn when they expire. In practice, there will be a stop to labor immigration to most professions except the most qualified,” said Patrick Joyce, chief economist at Almega in a statement. Integration Minister Simona Mohamsson (L) now believes that she is “proud that the government is listening to Swedish companies”, and refers to the government mitigating its proposal. But the business community does not want 80 percent requirements either.
The Employment Service and the Migration Board have, on the government’s assignment, produced a list of exemptions for professions with lower wages where the staff shortage is large. But the list contains 152 professions and should be updated annually. A system that requires 152 exceptions cannot be simple and easy to understand for companies – as even the government’s own Labor Minister Johan Britz (L) pointed out and criticized. The proposal also affects Sweden outside Stockholm disproportionately hard as the wage level is lower in the country than in the capital. This means, for example, that the important basic industry outside the metropolitan areas will have even more difficult to recruit expertise for competitive salaries. The bill for taxpayers is also not cheap. A calculation from the Swedish business community indicates that an increase in the wage floor from 80 to 100 percent of the median salary would reduce Sweden’s GDP by 30 billion and tax revenue by SEK 10 billion. An increase to 90 percent is of course better, but it will not be cheap either.
The timer’s proposal testifies to a superstition on Sweden’s attractiveness. Why should highly qualified labor choose to move to a cold country in Europe’s outskirts where the economy goes poorly, immigrants are seen with suspicion and it is constantly more difficult to stay? The government must listen to the business community for real and stop the increase in the wage floor completely. Sweden needs to become a country where more people come to work.
