This article reviews the most important labour market integration (LMI) support measures made available to recent immigrants in Sweden and outlines some of the important insights from recent studies of how the measures are organized in practice. The article focusses on recent immigrants, as LMI measures in Sweden generally target this group which is considered as facing the greatest difficulties to become employed.
The integration of immigrants, and refugees in particular, into the labour market has been a standing issue in Sweden over the past decades (see e.g. Dahlstedt, 2013). The country has a large migrant population and has over many years taken in more refugees per capita than any other European country (UNHCR, 2011, 2015). In 2015, close to 163 000 asylum seekers arrived to Sweden, an increase of 80 000 compared to 2014 (Swedish Migration Board, 2015). While numbers in asylum seekers have dropped considerably since 2016 due to more restrictive immigration legislation, those already in the country continue to face many challenges to become an integrated part of society (see e.g. Wikström and Sténs, 2019). They remain unemployed for longer periods of time or end up on more precarious employment contracts and lower-paid jobs than their native counterparts (Bevelander and Pendakur, 2014; Delmi, 2018). They are also over-represented in sectors with labour shortages (Segendorf and Teljosou, 2011) and prone to non-recognition of (educational) qualifications, which can severely inhibit movement out of low-wage, lowstatus and insecure jobs, even years after refugees have settled in Sweden (Delmi, 2018)…