Response to interpellation 2022/23:122 on the Swedish Public Employment Service's resources
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns Arbetsförmedlingen's resources and labor market policy. L argues that the government sees room for efficiencies and that there is an opportunity for continued increase of measures such as matching services and labor market training 1. L considers that the agency is well-equipped with a multi-billion SEK appropriation and 11,000 employees 2. L argues that the focus on the job-related, efficiency, and individual focus is correct 3. S argues that the government and SD are cutting back on active labor market policy 4. S argues that Arbetsförmedlingen cannot manage the assignment with current resources 5. L argues that they are working with assignments to handle long-term unemployment 2.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! Serkan Köse has asked me how I intend to ensure that Arbetsförmedlingen is well-equipped as we head into a recession and unemployment is set to increase.
In order for the labor market policy activities to function well, Arbetsförmedlingen and the measures that the agency has at its disposal need to be effective. As stated in the budget bill for 2023, the government assesses that there is room for efficiencies in labor market policy. There is, however, still room for a continued increase in measures relative to last year's levels. This concerns matching services and labor market training. In addition, the government proposes an investment in work placements.
The main regulatory framework in the reform of Arbetsförmedlingen and the labor market policy activities entered into force on 1 December 2022. This provided better conditions for labor market policy interventions to be carried out by providers. Furthermore, this means that the operations are developed and streamlined in various respects, including regarding the labor market policy assessment and the infrastructure for information exchange.
Arbetsförmedlingen will continue to be a large and important agency and has an administrative appropriation amounting to 7.6 billion kronor during 2023. Furthermore, the agency has an appropriation saving from 2022 of approximately 200 million kronor that can be utilized during the year. Collectively, the allocated funds in the administrative appropriation thus amount to approximately 7.8 billion kronor for 2023.
As I have said before, Madam Speaker, the government follows the development of unemployment closely and is prepared to take further measures in the labor market area if necessary.
Serkan Köse (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister for Employment, for the answer to my question!
As the Minister for Employment said, I asked a very simple question about how the government will ensure that Arbetsförmedlingen is well-equipped now that we are in a recession and see figures showing increasing unemployment. We also have a high long-term unemployment while at the same time there are very many vacancies on the Swedish labor market.
The background to my question is that the Ministry of Finance's latest forecast, the Konjunkturinstitutet, the LO economists, and several others point out that Sweden is heading into a recession and that unemployment will continue to increase. Even in Arbetsförmedlingen's latest report on the development of the Swedish labor market, it is noted that we will see an increased unemployment. They also point to long-term unemployment. On the Swedish labor market, there are today more than 144,000 people who have been registered for longer than twelve months, which corresponds to almost half of the registered unemployed.
Even in the government's own budget, it is noted that weaker demand for labor and rising unemployment mean that persons with weak ties to the labor market are hit particularly hard.
In this situation, Madam Speaker, the government and the Sweden Democrats choose to cut back on active labor market policy - barely 7 billion is allocated to programs and initiatives. This can be compared with 13 billion during the boom year 2018. It is a gigantic cut in programs and initiatives and in Arbetsförmedlingen's conditions to conduct an active labor market policy.
If we are to ensure that people are given the conditions to establish themselves in the Swedish labor market, active measures and interventions are required, and for this, resources for the labor market policy are needed. In addition, Arbetsförmedlingen has the mandate to ensure that the labor market policy functions throughout the country.
In Arbetsförmedlingen's budget proposal, it is highlighted that more resources are needed. They request larger appropriations in order to be able to fulfill the mandate. We can, however, note that the Minister in his brief answer did not address this. This discussion was not problematized, but the Minister expressed – in very simplified terms – that there is room for efficiency gains within the labor market policy and referred to a reform. He also said that Arbetsförmedlingen has an appropriation saving that can be used.
But there are very large needs. I doubt any employment agency shares the Minister for Employment's view that there are sufficient resources and sufficiently good conditions today to manage this.
I have heard the answer. I have also read the budget as well as the regulatory letters and instructions to the agency. Nothing is mentioned about how the local presence is to be secured. In order to complete the mission and ensure that more are equipped, resources are needed for a purposeful local presence across the entire country.
My question remains: Does the Government consider that Arbetsförmedlingen is well-equipped to meet the challenges we face today in the Swedish labor market?
An important part of the discussion concerns strengthening the local presence. Does the Minister believe that we will manage this with the resources that exist?
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! I am incredibly happy about the confidence given that the new government will manage what the previous government did not manage during eight years.
I want to problematize the whole thing, just as I did in opposition. This is quite difficult. Many people have been cemented into exclusion and are very far from the labor market. It has become so despite good intentions. No one has had this as an intention, but it has become so that people, despite having been adults and healthy, have not received sufficiently strong measures during their first time - during the establishment - in Sweden. After that, they have also not entered the labor market. These are people who have come to our country from all corners of the world, so it is about persons who have obvious initiative.
I want to return to the administrative appropriation of 7.6 billion and to the savings in appropriations. There are 11,000 dedicated employees at Arbetsförmedlingen. The Social Democrats, while in government, made orders on how the operations should be designed and focus on labor market training. Grants were received to carry out this with complementary actors and matching services. To these resources, what you have now can be added – besides programs, there are labor market trainings and the subsidized employments, nystartsjobb and etableringsjobb that are coming. It is a very high level of ambition.
As I said in a previous interpellation debate, these measures continue even though it concerns new individuals. One must not forget that it is people who are entering the labor market. Unemployment decreased directly after covid let go of its grip in Sweden.
Now we have a new crisis, however, which consists of a multitude of things. We have the cost crisis, with an inflation that must be fought. We have the war with Putin. We also do not know where the Swedish industry, which is crucial for the development of unemployment in the long term, is headed or what happens with other important activities. Now it looks positive for some raw material industries, such as mines. The forest is also part of the discussion. All of this affects the labor market and is very important.
The idea is that new people will arrive. This is connected. I hope that everyone who is currently present in this committee wants the need for labor market policy to be as small as possible. It is not an end in itself for people to come to Sweden without skills, unless it is the case that they are asylum seekers and have the right to stay; in that case, they shall be allowed to stay and receive help with establishment. There we are quite in agreement on how it should look – it shall be job-focused, language-focused, and diligence-focused.
Otherwise, the idea is that young people should leave primary school, get into a high school - preferably with a practical or natural science orientation - and then get a job. That is the natural path. There is no inherent purpose in dropping out and coming to Arbetsförmedlingen or educating oneself for something that is not in demand on the labor market and then participating in Arbetsförmedlingen's measures.
This is at a level that can be compared to previous ones. The inflow is determined by the economic situation, but it should decrease as a result of the measures we are taking in schools and the upcoming subsidy reform.
Serkan Köse (S)
Madam Speaker! After having listened to the Minister for four minutes, I wonder if the Minister actually heard my contribution and my questions.
I do not know if the Minister has seen the budget proposal that Arbetsförmedlingen sent to the government. Here, the prerequisites for conducting an active labor market policy are addressed, and it is clearly pointed out that more resources are required. I agree. Arbetsförmedlingen's 11,000 fantastic employees are doing their utmost to provide people with the best possible support and help to enter the labor market.
It did not sound that way half a year ago, but now it is pleasing to hear that the Liberals and the government have changed their opinion regarding Arbetsförmedlingen.
The number of job seekers has doubled, and it is resource-intensive.
Much of the government's response to my and others' interpellations contains a lot of Social Democratic policy. It feels as though the government is still living on what the previous government delivered and achieved. Indeed, there is very little of the government's labor market policy in both the response and the budget, and in the Tidö Agreement, there is very little about what the government wants with the labor market policy.
I also asked a question about how we are to ensure a purposeful local presence throughout the country. For this, as stated, resources are required. How is Arbetsförmedlingen to be able to deliver a purposeful local presence throughout Sweden to meet the unemployed? It is stated neither in the regulatory letter nor the instruction. Will the government return with additional resources for this to Arbetsförmedlingen and with a clear policy regarding the local presence? This is clearly stated in Arbetsförmedlingen's budget basis to the government.
Let me also remind you that the bourgeois parties have for many years questioned the active labor market policy and also on a number of occasions proposed that Arbetsförmedlingen should be abolished. On the Liberals' website, one can still read that this billion-dollar solution shall be abolished.
This was also clearly noticed in the M-KD-SD budget that was voted through in the Riksdag in 2019, and also in the 2021 budget, which involved dramatic changes, and Arbetsförmedlingen was forced to give notice to a third of its employees and cut back on labor market policy interventions. That is well the biggest reason why we are where we are today regarding capacity and increased workload. The consequences for Arbetsförmedlingen are that they cannot cope, and therefore they demand more resources to fulfill their mission.
Back to my questions to the Minister. The employees and the trade union organizations have a different opinion than the Minister regarding the resources for Arbetsförmedlingen. Does the Minister consider that Arbetsförmedlingen is well-equipped to receive more unemployed people during the current recession? Will the Minister return with proposals for improvements?
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! There is reason to return to a number of areas, not least if there are significant changes in the labor market depending on, for example, the economic situation or upcoming structural changes due to the global environment, which can happen quite quickly.
We are working on various assignments for the Public Employment Service. One is to return with more labor market trainings. This cannot be tenfold or hundredfold, but it must be taken successively in order to rebuild a level that I believe even the Social Democrats now have the ambition to have.
We have given two major assignments regarding long-term unemployment. Here we are holding on and have only delivered a marginally different opinion in the agency management. It is partly about the implementation in areas with socio-economic challenges, where a number of sub-reports are incoming, and partly about analyzing the needs that exist, on a more theoretical level, to increase the transition to work or education so that one can get out of exclusion and escape the pain of unemployment.
Here we continue to think not only of the state. We also think of idea-driven organizations and municipalities because cooperation needs to increase. Serkan Köse asked a question about the local presence, and it needs to become better. One must return with an agreement with all municipalities, and then we can look at how this can be implemented in a good way.
When I entered the Ministry of Employment, there were very many people in Sweden who were long-term unemployed and who had fared poorly over the last eight years. Let me however add that there were others who fared poorly during the eight years before that. It has therefore happened too little with the work principle because, as said, people have not wanted to make unpleasant decisions that it should always pay to work. Perhaps there has also been negligence regarding the quality of SFI and the requirement for attendance. Here, we also hold onto what the Social Democrats bravely dared to talk about, not least towards the end of the parliamentary term.
It concerns an enormous number of people, and some of them need to meet a person. The digital is perhaps not always so effective. It works for many to go that way first, but others need a close contact.
Should Arbetsförmedlingen exist in every municipality? Yes, we have to discuss that. It could be via a service center with updated power at certain times of the day. It is a general societal problem that the state has rolled back, but what is needed in a locality is work for the person who is unemployed, not Arbetsförmedlingen itself. It is contact with Arbetsförmedlingen and effective measures, support, and help that is needed.
It also concerns other important state activities, for example the police. In the municipalities, there is often more Systembolaget staff than both police officers and employment service officers, and everyone in here needs to ask themselves if this is a correct prioritization. In many municipalities, there may only be points of sale. Presence is important.
Based on our dialogue and the reports we receive from Arbetsförmedlingen, I judge that they are well-equipped with a multi-billion SEK grant and their 11,000 skilled employees, who, in a calmer environment, can do a fantastic job.
Serkan Köse (S)
Madam Speaker! We have every reason to return and debate these important issues again, but I thank you for the debate so far.
There are great challenges in the Swedish labor market. We have long-term unemployment that must be combated, and it was the Social Democratic government that tasked Arbetsförmedlingen with both strengthening the support for the long-term unemployed, especially in areas with socioeconomic challenges, and analyzing what needs the long-term unemployed who are far from the labor market have and, if necessary, proposing measures for this target group.
It is interesting to hear that the Minister intends to fulfill the mission that Arbetsförmedlingen has received from the Social Democratic government, because this is a rather big challenge for Sweden. It is a challenge on the Swedish labor market that we have very many who are long-term unemployed, and in that case, measures must also be implemented.
That is what we are discussing, Minister - resources, measures, and efforts. If you look at the budget, you see that resources and efforts are lacking. A vision, a will, a plan is lacking.
The answer I have received is that very little is affected. Reference is made to existing resources and a small increase in appropriations is made to Arbetsförmedlingen. But if we look at the boom year 2018, we had double the resources for labor market policy interventions and programs, as I mentioned earlier. Here we now see a cut.
I can understand that the Minister has a very difficult task, as the Sverigedemokraterna's entry point and ambition in labor market policy is to reduce all active measures, not least when it comes to establishment measures. We have been able to read this in their previous motions, where they want to slaughter the labor market policy.
It is a rather difficult situation for the Liberals to try to balance this. At the same time as one has the will to do something, one has on the other hand the Sweden Democrats who pull back.
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! The Liberals and the Sweden Democrats are not best friends, if we say so. However, we have the common direction that we believe it is good to strengthen the work line. In other matters, we disagree. It can be things that are very early in a young person's life, for example, mother tongue, where we can pull in different directions.
The idea that it should pay to work, that one should speak Swedish in Sweden and that one should behave, is however a line that we share, and I have also perceived that the Social Democrats fully stand behind this. That is something I am very happy about, because that is not how it has always sounded.
When it comes to how it looked in 2018, I want to refer again to what I have said earlier today regarding the evaluations that have shown how much Sweden has invested in labor market policy. Since we have nevertheless had the high unemployment, we have missed the target. Therefore, we are talking about ambitious labor market policy that must also be sufficiently effective and hit the mark.
First, at the end of the mandate period, in February 2022, the Social Democrats came up with the idea that they would make these investments. It hasn't even been a year. I welcome it, but had they focused on long-term unemployment seven years earlier, it would have been fantastic.
I want to say that the direction is correct. There is a focus on the job-related, there is a focus on efficiency, there is a focus on the individual and one does not shy away from setting certain requirements. It is very good.
Even though it is your privilege to always shout for more and say that it is too little, too contentless and too visionless, I want to emphasize that I am the first to say that certain measures that the Social Democrats have taken have been good. But the work line is based on efficiency and quality, and it always begins with there being companies and organizations that want to hire people.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.