Response to interpellation 2023/24:561 on the development of vocational training
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L argues that labor market training is an important tool to meet employers' needs 1 and that the government prioritizes more places within vocational colleges and vocational adult education 1. L emphasizes that the authority must improve the matching 1, that resources must be managed during the recession 1 2 and that the educations must maintain quality and be completed 3. L considers it important to have basic knowledge in Swedish 3 and that the school should be upgraded 4. S argues that the government has cut back on active job initiatives 5 and that the new resources are too small 5. S argues that it is possible to double the number of places through other priorities 6.
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! Teresa Carvalho has asked me whether I and the government intend to take measures so that more people will receive labor market training in 2024 and, if so, which measures.
A well-functioning labor market is of crucial importance for a competitive economy and, in the long run, for securing prosperity in Sweden. To achieve a well-functioning labor market, there is a need for specific measures that facilitate entry into the labor market. The Government has therefore, in Arbetsförmedlingen's regulatory letter for 2024, given the agency a new goal concerning the agency improving matching and supporting the skill supply in the labor market. This shall, among other things, be achieved through establishment jobs, start-up jobs, and matching services, as well as by increasing the number of participants in labor market training, work placements, and wage subsidies, and the number of transitions to education that in the long run aim for unsubsidized work.
At the same time as there are many unemployed, the shortage of labor is great in many industries. The lack of matching on the labor market is partly due to the fact that job seekers do not have the professional competence that is in demand.
Labor market training is an important tool at Arbetsförmedlingen both to facilitate entry into the labor market for job seekers and to meet employers' needs. More unemployed people need to educate themselves to obtain the skills that employers demand. Labor market training, as well as regular education, has an important role in this context.
Labor market training is an important complement to regular education, and the regular education system constitutes the backbone when it comes to training the workforce. The opportunity for education therefore needs to be strengthened to meet the continued large competence needs throughout Sweden. For that reason, the government prioritizes investments in more locations both within the university colleges and the vocational adult education so that access to such education is improved and more can quickly enter the workforce.
In accordance with the budget bill for 2024, funds corresponding to 19,500 places in regional vocational adult education and vocational colleges were added, and in the supplementary budget for 2024, an additional 167 million kronor is proposed for 2,000 more places in regional vocational adult education. The investments are crucial both for Sweden's competitiveness and for improving individuals' opportunities to obtain employment.
The Swedish Council for Vocational Higher Education has recently been commissioned to initiate a pilot project with a new form of vocational education for adults, at the upper secondary level, which is based on the vocational higher education model.
The Government is following the developments and has an ongoing dialogue with Arbetsförmedlingen regarding how the agency is working to increase the volumes in the labor market training.
Teresa Carvalho (S)
Madam Speaker! Sweden is in a recession. These are tough times, and many households are twisting and turning every penny to be able to pay the bills. The recession is now also hitting the labor market hard. We see how unemployment is increasing and the layoffs are looming. But instead of managing this crisis, the government is worsening the situation. They have, to the highest degree, contributed to the construction in the country grinding to a halt. They are not injecting what is needed to save jobs within the welfare sector. They are also cutting back on active job initiatives at a time when they should be scaled up.
This interpellation targets the last part of what I just mentioned, i.e., the active job measures, which include, among other things, the labor market trainings. My question therefore does not concern what Johan Pehrson chooses to speak about in his answer, adult education.
Let me briefly answer regarding that part anyway. Above all, I want to emphasize that I do not think the Minister for Employment has particularly much to boast about there either. His government began the mandate period by also cutting significantly in that area. That one then regrets it and adds a part hardly makes it an investment. What is now coming in the supplementary budget is also, frankly, mostly for show. It is not resources that the educational providers will be able to manage to convert into education on such short notice during the current year.
I must also say that it is the height of impudence when the Minister for Employment stands here and says that the government is going to increase the number of participants with wage subsidies when he has just presented a spring budget amendment that cuts by a quarter of a billion in this area.
But back to the labor market trainings, Madam Speaker. The Sweden Democrats and the government are truly taking every chance they get to cut back on the active job initiatives. In their first budget after the change of power, they cut significantly in labor market policy. The Minister for Employment however assured, not least in interpellation debates such as this, that the cuts to the active initiatives would not affect the volumes of the labor market trainings. On the contrary, the so-called efficiencies of other initiatives, i.e., savings, would create room for a continued increase in the number of participants in labor market training.
So that was what it was called. It was something that we Social Democrats with emphasis questioned. As many of us feared, there were not more. There were fewer. We know that now.
In view of this, I have asked Minister for Employment Johan Pehrson what measures he is now taking to ensure that there are not even fewer this year, now that resources have decreased again and will decrease again later this year and decrease again next year.
We have just heard Johan Pehrson deliver a response which stated that despite the new cuts, there will likely still be more participants, at least this year. I think that is a rather bold statement. I wonder if Johan Pehrson believes it himself. I do not give it particularly high credibility, at least, because we heard the minister answer the same thing the last time it happened, with the opposite result.
Both the responsible authority and, in fact, all logic point to the fact that when one makes such drastic cuts, fewer people will be able to take part in the measures. I would therefore like to ask the minister why we should believe him this time.
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! Sweden is, as has been said, unfortunately still in a recession, however with the enormously aggravating factor that we have a very high inflation, an inflation that we now hope is at the door - not on its way in but on its way out. This could the National Institute of Economic Research report on this week. But the danger is not over.
A consequence of this is that even the state's authorities must manage resources. In that case, the mission is to conduct an efficient, and not least cost-effective, operation and focus on the core mission. That is how the government directs the authority that has the task of delivering just labor market training. One cannot, however, ignore - I must return to it, and it also applies to the interpellor - that other measures are also important here, such as yrkesvux to enter the regular labor market or yrkeshögskolan.
We have on several occasions here in the chamber, Madam Speaker, discussed whether the budget that was submitted contained additional investments. When the Social Democrats left power after the previous mandate period, they were not included. It was a post-pandemic budget, and that was a correct assessment at the time. Right now, we have the pandemic that we suffered from during the previous mandate period under control.
That is why it is built upon the regular education "post-pandemic". That is why we report it as investments. I still feel that it can be seen that these investments lead to more educational places and, not least, to new real jobs. We must solve the difficult skills gap with too many unemployed and still many vacant jobs that people cannot take.
Then we come to the labor market training. The Swedish Public Employment Service's main argument, even when they are in the Committee on Employment here in the Riksdag, I guess, is that it is difficult for people to be able to take these jobs. They have insufficient basic or insufficient knowledge of Swedish, which is a serious problem.
Arbetsförmedlingens mission is to, despite this, try to ensure that procurement and close cooperation with companies in the region lead to more positions. But it is correctly described that during 2023 there were fewer positions on an annual basis, when it comes to individuals who were able to participate. We want it to continue to increase.
At the same time, the mission for Arbetsförmedlingen is to ensure that it is done in a responsible manner. The incredibly skilled, often private, companies make a great effort to heal other deficiencies – these can be due to the school system or integration when people have arrived in Sweden – and it must lead to efficiency. Then, one cannot have too many dropouts. It cannot be people who are unmotivated.
It is important that one continues to develop, not least to get in more women but also to ensure that those who undergo the training actually get jobs. Otherwise, it risks becoming money down the drain.
Teresa Carvalho (S)
Madam Speaker! I hear Johan Pehrson saying that labor market training is important. That is good. Then we agree that far. It has not always been that way, Madam Speaker.
The fact is that before Johan Pehrson entered the Ministry of Employment, he held the opposite view. From this position, he actively pushed in the Riksdag to significantly cut back on specific labor market training programs. It was not just about a general cut in labor market policy that could potentially happen to affect labor market training, like the defense we now hear from the Minister for Employment as to why fewer and not more people went into a labor market training program last year. At that time, he specifically pointed out labor market training as something that should be cut back significantly. In the last budget the Liberals submitted before the change of power, Johan Pehrson proposed that labor market training should be reduced by 829 million kronor, almost 1 billion, in 2024.
It is not for lack of people who question Johan Pehrson's newly acquired enthusiasm for labor market training as a tool to tackle the all too high unemployment. One wonders if it is sincerely meant. What is it that has caused Johan Pehrson to change his mind? Did reality perhaps catch up, and it turned out that it was not as simple as basically telling people to cut their hair and get a job? Or is it only the rhetoric that has changed?
Regardless of what Johan Pehrson says, whether he says that labor market training is important or should be saved, the result of his policy is that fewer unemployed people are undergoing labor market training. Everything also points to the fact that it will continue in that direction, which I regret.
We Social Democrats have shown in our shadow budget that it is entirely possible to double the number of places in labor market training without driving up inflation. But that assumes that other priorities are made, for example, letting labor market policy take precedence over tax cuts and luxury-rot for the wealthiest in society. Does the Minister for Employment not mean that it would be inflation-driving in this situation to ensure that people get jobs? Or does he mean outright that it is a strategy from the government to keep unemployment up, so that the opposite would be to drive up inflation?
The Minister for Employment is more than welcome to take more inspiration from the Social Democrats' policy in this area. If he has now allowed himself to be inspired to reach the realization that labor market training is important, he is also more than welcome to look at how we have financed it.
It is, after all, not what the minister says in this debate that is most important for getting people into jobs, but it is what happens when the debate is over, what the Minister for Employment does when he leaves here and walks back to the Ministry of Employment.
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! We who have been out on life's journey for a while have sometimes really been forced to reassess. It is an intellectual approach, to see what is not working and what one must do to get it, in this case all of Sweden, to function better.
One must say that I am light-years behind the Social Democrats' fantastic, almost Marvel-like, ability to make quick turns in politics. If there is anyone that reality has caught up with, it is surely the Social Democrats, who so far during the mandate period have overhauled their policy in almost every area except one, Madam Speaker. That is that it is Arbetsförmedlingen that is to solve the problem with the far too high unemployment.
Arbetsförmedlingen is a fantastic agency that makes great efforts and important measures. It is one of our largest agencies. They are to handle everything that is legally required and ensure that people actually look for jobs, now also within a broader area professionally and geographically to address the fact that people do not always apply for the vacant jobs that exist. That is where the labor market trainings are important. It concerns people who are registered with Arbetsförmedlingen.
This is still constitutional, and as a minister, one must be careful, Madam Speaker, so that one does not receive a lot of qualified KU reports. One cannot go in and rule over the authorities; it is forbidden in our constitution. It is important to be clear that it is the Riksdag that enacts the laws and the government that governs the authorities through regulatory letters, the budget, and so on.
But the execution, producing labor market training for real occupations - in service, cleaning, plumbing, as industrial technicians, or whatever it may be of all the important tasks - which many private training providers, among others, deliver, must not be wasted. One has two tasks: ensure that the training maintains quality, and ensure that those who attend complete the training. And they are welcome to combine them with reinforced instruction in Swedish, for example via SFI, in order to make themselves employable.
It is correct that in a number of locations with important educations, some momentum was lost, not least as a result of a major actor having to cancel its operations last year for various reasons. The mission is to increase, to get more women to attend the educations and to continue to maintain high quality. There is no other way.
But remember that labor market policy is also education policy. It is important that people receive basic knowledge in the Swedish language and basic fundamental skills to be employable. Therefore, Arbetsförmedlingen is working intensively to ensure that people also enter other types of education, not just labor market training.
Teresa Carvalho (S)
Madam Speaker! Another way to avoid KU reports is to carry out the gender equality analyses that the legislative process requires.
Sweden is in a recession. Unemployment is increasing. The raindrops are falling heavily. Construction workers, healthcare staff, and shop assistants are being told right now that they might not have their jobs anymore. What do the Sweden Democrats and Johan Pehrson do then? Well, they cut back heavily on the active measures, including labor market training, and they lower the unemployment insurance for those who have not managed to find a new job within 100 days. It is indecent, and it is certainly not how Sweden once built its competitiveness.
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! What is decent is to ensure that the Swedish school - primary school and upper secondary school - is upgraded so that students leave school with sufficient grades to work, support themselves and contribute to the building of Sweden.
Arbetsförmedlingens various measures are continued to be very important. The budget includes, as is known, over 90 billion in this area, including the allowance. It is intended to provide protection and help people. We provide opportunities, but we also set requirements on individuals to themselves ensure that they can support themselves in the country Sweden.
It is still a major problem that too many are unemployed at the same time as there are over 100,000 vacant jobs to apply for. In that case, one must work with skills and work broadly. The message from those responsible for this, i.e., the authority, is that people have too little knowledge - often in Swedish - and too little basic knowledge, which makes it not relevant to have a labor market training, and that people de facto do not want to apply for the labor market trainings that exist.
Among the educational providers, which often are private companies, one finds a multitude of drivers to organize good labor market training to solve the skills challenges. Companies are crying out for skills for the jobs that need to be performed. But quality is also required, and therefore we work hard to ensure that more people in Sweden learn Swedish and receive a basic education.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.