Response to interpellation 2022/23:309 on the skills challenge in the labor market
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 L argues that skills supply requires a clearer work line where it is profitable to work and educate oneself 1. 1 L emphasizes that the government is investing in the transition package and has established a special office for matching in the north 1. 2 L underlines that healthy adults have a personal responsibility for their own livelihood 2. 3 L argues that the government is investing 89 billion SEK in labor market policy 3 4. 4 L emphasizes the individual's personal responsibility and that citizens' money should be used with care and quality 3 4. 5 S argues that the government lacks initiative and that the state must take the lead again through a national mobilization 5. S wants to see a national strategy rather than one limited to northern Sweden. 6 S argues that the government lacks resources for CSN to handle the application pressure for the transition study support 6. 6 S believes that the government has withdrawn money from adult education and that the funding is insufficient 6. 6 7 S argues that Arbetsförmedlingen lacks resources to fulfill the mission regarding skills supply 6 7. 6 7 S calls for a national mobilization where trade union organizations, the business sector, and the state cooperate 6 7. 6 7 S emphasizes the need for a housing policy to enable relocation to northern Sweden 6 7. 8 S wants the government to take action immediately 8.
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 if I intend to take any measures for a national mobilization regarding the skills challenge, if I intend to take the initiative for some type of crisis commission, and if I intend to take the initiative to create incentives to get more people to steer the moving van northward.
Serkan Köse has previously asked me questions linked to skills supply and matching. He will therefore probably recognize some of what I present in the following answer.
Competence supply is a completely central challenge on the labor market. The basis for tackling this is a clearer work line that makes it more profitable to work, to train for a profession where there is a shortage, and to move to where the jobs are.
Since the government took office, Arbetsförmedlingen has received several assignments linked to the skills supply. Among others, the agency shall develop its work with labor market policy interventions and employer contacts, take measures to improve geographical and professional mobility among job seekers, and develop its work with skills supply in the case of large company establishments and company expansions.
The government is also investing several billion during the coming years in the transition package, which gives employees the opportunity to retrain and increase their skills in the middle of their careers. In the long term, this can both strengthen the individual's position on the labor market and meet employers' needs for competence.
The transition in northern Sweden is special due to its scope and high speed. Arbetsförmedlingen has, alongside the general work that the agency carries out, established a special office for conversion and matching in the north, with offices in both Skellefteå and Luleå. The office works with both private and public employers to counteract the skills shortage as much as possible.
The government has previously appointed a coordinator for the business sector's sustainable transition and the societal transformation in Norrbotten and Västerbotten counties. The coordinator's mandate has now been extended. In January 2023, the government further announced that a unified strategy for northern Sweden will be developed. The strategy will be long-term and promote green re-industrialization and, among other things, touch upon energy, mines, skills supply, community services as well as housing and infrastructure.
As evidenced, the government takes the competence challenge very seriously. This is especially true in perspective of what is happening right now in northern Sweden. I will closely follow the development moving forward and am prepared to take further measures if necessary.
Serkan Köse (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Johan Pehrson, for the answer!
A stronger supply of skills is crucial to increase employment and reduce unemployment. Although unemployment is trending downwards according to the new figures from Arbetsförmedlingen, which is pleasing, we cannot ignore the important issue that we are discussing today, Madam Speaker.
We have today over 220,000 vacancies. It is an increase from the previous year, when the figure stood at 207,000. These figures clarify that the need for labor is still enormous and that the imbalance between supply and demand on the labor market continues to be enormous. It is an enormous challenge for Sweden, especially in northern Sweden where employers desperately need labor.
A report from the trade union Unionen was recently presented. There, it is shown that six out of ten employers in Norrbotten and Västerbotten will be affected by the large industrial expansion in the region within five years. Of the employers already affected, nine out of ten experience that the expansion has made it more difficult for them to retain employees, according to Unionen's report Competence crucial for the green industrial transition in the north.
The technology companies emphasize that the situation is serious and that the solution to the skills shortage must be a priority for the government. Many municipalities are now struggling with the need and are doing everything to increase their attractiveness and get more people to move over.
Madam Speaker! In order for Sweden to manage the climate transition and meet the competence needs in the large industrial establishments, particularly in northern Sweden, it requires a political determination and a capacity for action that I feel the government lacks and does not quite convey in the response from the Minister.
Minister Johan Pehrson must realize the seriousness, act, and gather municipalities, the business community, trade union organizations, and other actors to take a holistic approach to meet the challenge. It is very important for Sweden, not least for employment, as I mentioned earlier, but also to reduce unemployment.
I experience rather that the Minister simplifies the serious competence shortage on the Swedish labor market by stating that the unemployed are doing too well or that it is fat to be unemployed.
The shortage of train drivers has been discussed, just like other professional groups such as chefs, bus drivers, machine operators, and nursing assistants. We do not solve that by reducing resources for adult education or active job policy.
To meet the skills shortage, I believe that political decisiveness and a concerted effort from the government's side are needed so that we can train more people within the shortage occupations.
I can state that Johan Pehrson has now held the role of Minister for Employment and been responsible for employment policy for just over half a year. The probationary period has expired. Now it is time for the government to start delivering, take the lead, and demonstrate that it has solutions to the great challenge that we have today in the Swedish labor market.
It is about the state taking the lead again and supporting regions and municipalities in the issue of skills supply. It is a challenge for every municipality and region to solve it alone. Skills supply requires a coordinated effort.
In view of this, I asked questions to Minister for Employment and Integration Johan Pehrson regarding concrete measures for a national coordination of the skills challenge. Examples of such measures can, as I mentioned, be the establishment of a crisis commission or that the minister takes the initiative to get more people to move north. I can refer to the project in Malmö where they were to attract more people to the north. There, the result was that no one moved.
Sofia Amloh (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer!
Even though the Minister believes that we can repeat ourselves and continue to hold on to certain issues, it is fundamentally based on the fact that we see a great need. I can feel that we have a certain concern.
When it comes to the issues of skills supply, we see how the matching really does not work. We see the gap that exists. The Minister says that we should see what happens and that he is following the issue. I would like to see some initiative here.
I still think there is a good initiative from the government with the consolidated strategy that was launched in January. It is good. It is good with long-term thinking, because I believe that this issue truly requires it. These are large projects that span many years. It also means that they have been underway for some time. These are establishments that did not arise yesterday. It is something we have seen and that we want.
I have some questions regarding the long-term strategy. How far does it extend? What are we talking about – five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years into the future? What else should it contain? I think it could be presented more here today when we talk about it. I am also thinking about the number of housing units, Madam Speaker. What target exists? Will the strategy be presented in a more unified manner?
An objection I may have against the long-term strategy is that it is directed only towards northern Sweden. Why? I think that the strategy with power gathering from a national plan should be for all of Sweden when it comes to matching and providing competence. This transition is being made in all of Sweden. Even though we have new steel plants establishing themselves in northern Sweden, there are also projects in other parts of the country. We are going to build a new main line, a railway, south of Stockholm. It will also require an incredible amount of resources. I envision that the strategy should be national and have a holistic approach.
For a long-term strategy, I also think that something needs to come that is closer in time, i.e., something that is more short-term. What is being done now? What can we expect in the short term? It creates a legitimacy somewhere for the long-term work to set the direction and the goal so that in 20 years there will be, for example, 100,000 more homes, or whatever it may be – now I am speculating. But in the short term, we need to have something else to expect. What can we see during the coming year or the coming years?
If we miss this, the jobs will not be here, and the transition will not occur to the extent that is needed. These jobs and this competence will not remain in Sweden. We want to see a national rallying of forces, thank you!
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! First, I really want to thank Serkan Köse and Sofia Amloh for your strong commitment to this issue. There are so many politicians in all sorts of different parties who have such a strange commitment to such strange issues. But you are committed to the most important thing there is: that healthy, able-bodied adults should go to work.
For this, the responsibility is shared. It is shared in such a way that politics shall create good conditions through everything from preschools to top-level research in the regular education system. For everyone who may have fallen through the cracks along the way, there shall be opportunities for komvux, yrkesvux, and vocational colleges. There shall be opportunities for labor market training. There shall be opportunities for subsidized employment to get a foot in the door and a ramp-up to a regular job in the future. For it is so important that one is self-sufficient. It is so important for the freedom of the individual, and it is so important so that one can participate and contribute as a nation-builder.
If we are to meet the future needs of healthcare and more elderly care homes, and if we are to meet the extremely high climate goals, healthy adults must work. It is a shared responsibility.
From the government's side, we believe strongly in opportunities and requirements. We believe that we must be clear about the work line, the education line, and not least the language line, because we know that the 400,000 people who are unemployed today often have linguistic deficiencies. They have not learned Swedish well enough.
I just want to say thank you to the members for their commitment. However, I will nag and return to this starting point, because it is a shared responsibility. Adults, healthy people have a personal responsibility to support themselves - when there are jobs. Because that is also the question, which you also point out. When there are 200,000 vacant jobs, it is something that has gone wrong in the matching. It has become a so-called mismatch.
I can state from an international perspective that when we gather under the Swedish presidency with Europe's labor ministers, they are impressed. They are impressed by the parties' strong responsibility for a model that usually creates industrial peace, which resolves conflicts and raises real wages over time – something that has now taken a significant hit in the recessionary and high-inflation economy that Sweden has had since some years back.
I can also state that there is a very positive view of Sweden. Since the government took office, it is apparently perceived that we will handle both energy issues, education issues, and safety issues. That is why we see that one is now, in addition to previous investments that have been made, investing heavily in Ludvika and in Karlskrona. The calculators at these companies might be wrong, but I believe they might be right. People believe in Sweden, and they believe that we can solve the challenges that exist so that it is well worth investing in Sweden. There are capable and hard-working people here.
We are making various initiatives in the short term. WHO decided just recently that the pandemic is now officially over as a pandemic. Here in the Riksdag, it has been over for a long time - practically. It is very clear that we can return to investing in, for example, adult education, vocational adult education, and universities of applied sciences. We have included this in our amendment budget to prepare for potentially worse times or so that this can be used by those people who do not use it today. We have programs to change SFI and to change the establishment so that more people, first and foremost, will learn Swedish in order to have the prerequisites to then get into jobs. That is the way.
Serkan Köse (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Johan Pehrson, for the answer and for the opportunity to discuss this important issue!
I completely share the Minister's view: Everyone who can work shall work. That is our clear starting point in the discussion. We agree on the description of the problem – that we have very many unemployed and a large demand for labor. But what we are not quite in agreement on are the methods, the choices of path, and the priorities.
Let us look at the budget. The Minister has mentioned the education line several times and that it is important to invest in education, and we fully share this view. It is clear that we must ensure that people are equipped and receive education for the vacant jobs that exist on the labor market today.
The Minister refers, for example, to the transition package. We can observe that CSN has several times warned that they do not quite have time to process and pay out the transition support to more than half of those affected. There is a great interest in studying with the transition student support this autumn, which is very good. But CSN today has 13,000 decisions left to make regarding the autumn semester applications. Therefore, a supplement of 50 million kronor has been demanded from the government. Even from the trade union side, more resources have been demanded so that they can handle the high application pressure. But in the budget, the government has provided zero money. The Minister is welcome to comment on how they will proceed so that CSN can handle these 13,000 remaining applications.
The second thing the Minister has mentioned is adult education. But there, the Minister and the government have withdrawn the money. With the money that was added in the spring budget, it is still a deficit from what was taken away. You reduced the appropriation by 1.2 billion, and then put back just over 700 million. This shows that it is an uneven and insufficient funding regarding adult education.
We can look at the example of Arbetsförmedlingen, which the Minister also raised in the interpellation response. Arbetsförmedlingen has been given the mandate regarding skills supply; that is correct. But at the same time, Arbetsförmedlingen is sounding the alarm that it will not be able to manage it because it does not have sufficient resources.
Now, the government has indeed allocated 50 million kronor, but in practice, it is also a reduction there. You are taking money from the program grant and adding it to the administrative grant. We have also heard the Director General say that these funds will not be usable. One is still in the red. On top of this, there is also a reduced grant remaining for next year, 400 million, and Arbetsförmedlingen is to continue to adapt to the reduced administrative grants in the coming years.
Arbetsförmedlingen has also sent its budget proposal to the government and demanded more money and resources to manage the work with skills supply and long-term unemployment, while at the same time having lost very many employees as an effect of the 2019 budget. It has thus continued.
I have also understood that the mandate for the government's coordinator for the business sector, Peter Larsson, whom the Social Democratic government appointed, ends at the end of June. The question then is: What will happen after that? Then we return once again to the discussion about long-term perspective. The companies, the business sector, the trade union organizations, the municipalities and the state must sit down together to handle the great skills challenge we have today in the Swedish labor market.
Connected to this, a housing policy is also needed if people are to be able to take the jobs. If people are to be moved from Malmö to northern Sweden, there must first be jobs they can take and, secondly, there must be a housing policy. Therefore, it will be very interesting how the government intends to handle that question, not least when one removes the investment support for building new.
There are, therefore, very many problems in this that I would very much like the Minister to comment on.
Sofia Amloh (S)
Madam Speaker! I agree with what the Minister says in his latest contribution regarding the shared responsibility. Both the state and the individual need to take responsibility so that one can enter the labor market. There must be requirements but also conditions. I want to emphasize that, because sometimes this government talks very much about the requirements. Can we not also just mention which conditions we should delve deeper into so that one gets the opportunity?
Can one be somewhat satisfied as long as one has set requirements, walk away and say that now we have done our part in the shared responsibility? No, I do not think so. One cannot be satisfied until people have been put to work, and then one must also create the conditions. If those conditions do not work, we must find conditions that do.
My questions still remain, Madam Speaker. The long-term strategy - a good initiative, as I said before - only covers northern Sweden. I think it should be a national effort. Does the Minister of State think it can extend that far?
In the interpellation answer, the Minister states that he is prepared to take further measures if necessary. Why wait? Why not take them? What are these measures that one is perhaps preparing to take at the right time?
As said, my questions remain. What is to be done in the short term? What is to be done in the long term? What objectives are there? Why is not all of Sweden covered?
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! A bit bluntly - or actually not - the government is investing 89 billion kronor so that people can get a second chance, so that the labor market can function, and so as to help and support those, not least young people, who for various reasons may in the worst case have left primary school or otherwise upper secondary school. That is the total investment in labor market policy, including the unemployment insurance fund. It is a very large amount of money.
Some of it we place on Arbetsförmedlingen, which has its own tools. There, more than 10,000 skilled employees work hard and try to help people who are far from the labor market. The previous government had a cooperation with Liberalerna and Centerpartiet where we created new actors who were allowed to work with Arbetsförmedlingen. Not everyone liked it, but I can state that in this tough situation, in the middle of the squeeze between a recession and high inflation, unemployment is decreasing - right now, while we stand here and talk.
I am prepared to look at how the world looks, with the threats of war and the globalization that exists, so that I and we are equipped for worse times and can act.
What measures are they missing from the opposition? Is it even more subsidized jobs? Is it even more training places that perhaps are not filled? Train drivers were mentioned here earlier. Not all places in the train driver training were filled last year. Now we are making a major investment in recruiting train drivers, who are important so that people can live and commute within labor market regions, get to work, get to school, get to old grandma – very important!
We see that Arbetsförmedlingen has a strong toolbox. We see how the nystartsjobben often work well, even if not without problems. There are, believe it or not, people who exploit the system, people who take advantage of others, people who do not follow the rules intended to support, protect, and help. There, we must also implement controls to achieve greater efficiency.
I want to return to the discussion about the 89 billion. These are funds that we collect in taxes from hard-working people in Sweden and which the Riksdag then always, often following proposals from the government, ultimately decides how we should use. We must use them with great care and great clarity in what we offer. We offer good opportunities, but it will also require a fairly hard effort from the individual to seek a job, take regular education where needed, perhaps take a labor market training course or prepare for a labor market training course. That is, in fact, the most common thing I hear when I speak with employment agencies around Sweden: We have plenty that we can offer, but it is not possible because the Swedish language skills are a bit too weak.
Then, of course, there is a desire to be able to solve all problems politically. That is why one hears everything from that there should be special state electricity procurements to that the state should conduct labor market training and largely transport people to the training. People, however, have a personal responsibility. Other opposition parties come up with that there should be state banks, state car manufacturers and state everything to solve these problems.
Serkan Köse (S)
Madam Speaker! It is fantastic that the Minister spent four minutes not answering the questions but talking about everything else.
We have talked about resources for Arbetsförmedlingen, the nystartsjobben, and 80 new billions in the budget. At the same time, we can observe that the government is cutting resources to Arbetsförmedlingen. Arbetsförmedlingen wanted 9 billion; in the government's budget, there are 7.8 billion. 1.2 billion is missing. Then you inject 50 million that you take from the program grant and add to the administrative grant. It does not quite become a serious discussion.
We face a huge challenge in the issue of skills supply, and that is what I want to come back to. A coordinated national skills supply policy was needed, a national responsibility. The Government needs to sit down together with all the stakeholders I mentioned earlier – trade union organizations, industry organizations, regions, municipalities and so on – and see how this can be solved. It is a huge challenge for Sweden. We have 200,000 vacant jobs. We are talking about northern Sweden – a gigantic challenge but also an enormous asset for our country with the entire green transition. For that, a housing policy is required, a labor market policy is required, and an education policy is required – all of this combined.
One can look at how they do it in the other Nordic countries. How do they do it in Norway? How do they do it in Denmark? Can we learn something from our neighboring countries?
For example, in Norway, the government cooperates with the business community, trade unions, educational institutions and so on. In Denmark, the labor market partners, educational institutions and relevant actors look at what should be done to manage the skills supply. It is an important issue.
It is an enormously important issue for Sweden. It is enormously important for continuing to reduce unemployment and increase employment. In that case, a national mobilization is needed. That is what we want to discuss, Johan Pehrson. The Minister has the responsibility to gather all relevant and important actors, so that we can get more people to move north.
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! We will take Serkan Köse's questions at the very end, so that it is done properly. Sofia Amloh must come back. It is unclear which question this concerns, but it is clear that we are going to invest in all of Sweden. That is what we do. We are investing 89 billion. That is good. I note that the Social Democrats, when they are in opposition, have even more money.
The first question is: Does the Minister intend to take any concrete measures for a national mobilization regarding the skills challenge?
We are making major changes to increase integration and bring people from exclusion into inclusion. We are doing great things to strengthen the quality of Arbetsförmedlingen's efforts. We shall not waste the citizens' money. Every single krona at Arbetsförmedlingen is the citizens' money. It is no one else's money. It is not Serkan Köse's money. It is not my money. It is the citizens' money.
We are doing great things for a national mobilization of strength. Add to that the regular education system.
So, things are being done. But it must be done with quality. Just pouring in money has been tried for a few years. That resulted in the enormous mismatch instead of the matching.
The second question is: Does the Minister intend to take the initiative for some type of crisis commission?
It is something I am truly prepared to do - when we have a crisis. For the time being, I intend to focus on using people's personal responsibility and a strong public commitment to further education and regular education to get people to take that responsibility.
Ultimately, it is also about a subsidy reform.
Another question is: Does the Minister intend to take any initiatives to create momentum to get more people to move north?
They exist, but they need to be strengthened. The unemployment insurance fund (A-kassan) is for when there are no jobs. The unemployment insurance fund is not for when there are 200,000 vacant jobs. Then one must push forward.
If we are to pay for school, for among other things the youth who sit in the audience and listen, and for more elderly care homes, healthy adults must work. That is what it is about. Then it is about quality in the labor market training.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.