Response to interpellation 2024/25:11 on the establishment of foreign-born women 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 proposes that newly arrived parents should be able to be absent from the establishment program during parental leave for up to twelve months without losing time 1. 2 L argues that the government should instead focus on vocational training that leads to jobs 2. 3 L emphasizes the importance of a strict immigration policy for the integration policy to function 3. 3 L argues that foreign-born women have an obligation to learn the language, seek work, and support themselves 3. 4 S welcomes the government's proposal but wants all proposals in the investigation, including individual adaptation, to be implemented 4. 4 5 S criticizes the government's cuts in labor market measures and the removal of extra services 4 5. 6 S argues that the extra services were a good start for women to be useful in a workplace 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 Mats Persson (L)
Mr. Speaker! Sofia Amloh has asked me if I intend to take any initiatives in light of the proposals that have emerged in the sub-report Establishment for more - equal opportunities for integration (SOU 2023:24).
In the budget bill for 2025, the government proposes several initiatives to strengthen integration.
Women born abroad have more difficulty establishing themselves on the Swedish labor market than men born abroad. In the sub-report Establishment for more, it is noted that it is more common for women to discontinue the establishment program to be on parental leave. Those who have children before or during their time in the establishment program risk losing time in the program because newcomers today only have the possibility to participate for 24 months during the first three years after population registration.
To strengthen integration, the conditions for newcomers to complete the establishment program need to be improved. In order to increase the opportunities for newcomers who are parents with small children to establish themselves more quickly in the labor market, the government therefore intends to introduce a possibility to be absent from the establishment program during parental leave with a child up to twelve months without losing time with establishment measures. This is judged to primarily have a positive impact on the conditions for newcomer women to receive support for their own livelihood.
The investigation also states that since many foreign-born women have children during their first years in Sweden, there is a need for targeted measures. The Government therefore also proposes an increase of 31 million SEK in 2025 and 28 million SEK from 2026 onwards for measures such as language training, literacy-promoting measures, and study and career guidance for foreign-born individuals who are at home with children. In addition to increased opportunities for establishment in working and social life, particularly for foreign-born women, the initiative can contribute to increased participation in preschool for children of foreign-born individuals, which provides improved opportunities for successful integration even for the children.
Sofia Amloh (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer and for the opportunity for this debate.
We Social Democrats truly welcome that the government has taken these proposals to heart in the way that is described here.
Let me provide the background. The investigation whose partial report we are discussing here was commissioned by the previous Social Democratic government. At the end of our mandate period, in 2022, we saw that the unemployment of foreign-born women decreased, but it was moving too slowly. Therefore, we commissioned this investigation to see how we could get more women to establish themselves faster in the labor market. The investigation submitted a number of proposals that this government has sent out for consultation and which are now returning in the budget, as the Minister has described. We Social Democrats think that is good.
We Social Democrats think that all the proposals in the investigation are worth launching, adopting, and making into reality. One of the perhaps slightly larger proposals in the investigation concerns expanding the target group for the establishment program and that it needs to be individually adapted. All referral bodies say that it would benefit everyone in the target group for the establishment program. Everyone would truly welcome precisely the individual adaptation because it would become even more accurate. A question I have for the Minister is, therefore, what the position is on those proposals and why they are not included in this budget.
We perhaps need to talk a bit more about integration specifically. Because that is what it is about. What is better integration policy than labor market policy? That is also one of the reasons why the committee in the Riksdag and the government minister are responsible for both the integration and labor market areas. It is in the labor market that it happens. It is there that one is integrated. It is there that one gets to enter society.
When people get to go to a workplace, they feel that they are being useful and are needed. It is very good to learn Swedish in the classroom at SFI, but the absolute best is when you are at a workplace and get to sit in the breakroom or stand in the kitchen and bake bread in the morning for the elderly who wake up and are going to have breakfast. That is where the real integration happens.
Many are long-term unemployed and need some form of intervention to be able to make that entry into the labor market. But this government is cutting the resources for labor market interventions as a whole. It is almost a halving of the resources since 2018. My question to the Minister is: Why are you cutting all the resources for labor market interventions when we see that it is what provides the boost that is required?
So I wonder: Why are you cutting so much, with so many billions that could be used to ensure that people receive the support or the opportunity they need to meet the requirements and enter the labor market? And why have you not included the other proposals from the investigation?
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Mats Persson (L)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you for your great commitment to these issues, Sofia Amloh! It is a strength that we, with broad political anchoring, can work together to try to improve things for people who come to our country and, not least, to ensure that foreign-born women, who we know have a weaker labor market position than other groups, can enter the Swedish labor market.
I really want to emphasize that I welcome that we can do this in broad political agreement. It was also good that the previous government commissioned this investigation, which now allows us to work further together on these types of issues.
Regarding the member's specific questions, we are now moving forward with some of the proposals from the investigation, which are announced in the budget. Some of the other questions are still being prepared in the Government Offices. We are, of course, looking closely at the referral comments that have been received from the referral bodies. There are different opinions there. We are looking at the pros and cons of different types of proposals.
In the current situation, we do what we consider most important and most urgent. It is the situation for those on parental leave. One should not, so to speak, lose one's place in the establishment because one is at home with children.
Regarding the member's second question, I believe that fundamentally it is about the fact that we have different views on how the policy should be conducted. We have a strong focus on education policy and vocational training. That is what we have focused on in this situation.
One must also remember that Arbetsförmedlingen has, so to speak, sent back a very large amount of money to the state every year during the last ten years. This means that they have not been able to use all the money that the Riksdag has decided to provide. This is naturally a problem and possibly a matter for another interpellation debate than today's exercise.
Sofia Amloh (S)
Mr. Speaker! I want to take a small look ahead and provide an example. In many contexts, I have met foreign-born women from many parts of the world. No matter how many they have been at the meetings where I have met them, each one has their own story and history. Not all, but many have a fairly high level of education. They have many different types of degrees and have studied in different countries. And when I meet them somewhere here in Sweden, they can actually speak Swedish very well and have learned it in a surprisingly short time. They are incredibly ambitious.
The women I have met the last few times have shown that they do not want anything else. They do everything in their power and tell me how important it is to be able to integrate into society by having a job. But they do not understand what more they need to do to actually get that entry ticket to the Swedish labor market. They do not get that support. It is not to Arbetsförmedlingen they go because it usually happens through digital tools. But that push into the labor market to be able to work one's way further is not there.
This government has removed several measures, including the extra services. They gave women the opportunity to enter a workplace in the public sector, where there is a huge need for competence, and literally establish themselves there and develop their language even further. But the government has removed that opportunity without replacing it with anything similar, especially not with any measure that has that profile when it comes to gender distribution and how the measures have been targeted. It was actually almost equal compared to other measures that predominantly benefit men.
Why are the measures that allow them to get that foothold they need to then be able to move forward being removed? It is not about us imposing demands on people. We are in complete agreement on that. What I doubt is what conditions are being created. Or is one pulling the rug out from under people?
We think that people need to be given a chance to live up to the high demands. But this government is removing measures and making it even harder to live up to high demands. I think that is sad.
The question remains: Why are resources for labor market measures being cut? Why have the extra services been removed? Why are there fewer measures while at the same time one does not open up the establishment program and make it more individually tailored?
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Mats Persson (L)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Sofia Amloh, for your commitment to these issues! I know that the member has had several interpellation debates with former ministers and has asked many written questions. That indicates a great personal commitment on the part of the member. I welcome that.
It is also completely in line with the government's view on this. The establishment of foreign-born women in the labor market is a high-priority issue for the government. We want to ensure that we get a society where people are given the opportunity to enter society and are met with high expectations but also many opportunities. One gets many opportunities when one comes here to Sweden, receives a residence permit and eventually becomes a Swedish citizen. It is a great opportunity.
At the same time, not all the measures that the Social Democrats implemented when they were in power were perfect. I believe that the Social Democrats must also acknowledge that. It is important that different types of measures do not become a kind of warehousing, but they must be measures that lead to being able to get a real job.
The evaluations that exist of the so-called extra services, which were often under the municipalities' management, show that the absolute majority of those who participated in that type of program did not get a real job afterwards, but it became largely a kind of storage.
The Government has a completely different view on this. We do not believe that Sweden should have a labor market policy where people are not given the chance to move forward to a real job or to other measures. Therefore, we invest in other measures that lead to jobs. This can involve vocational training within the framework of komvux activities. There, one can take a training course to get work in elderly care, become a bus driver, or the equivalent. It can involve training for shortage occupations on the technical side or within professions where there is work waiting at the other end.
This is the focus of our labor policy, not to have measures where people passively go through a measure year after year without thereafter being able to move on to a job where they support themselves.
Sofia Amloh (S)
Mr. Speaker! To begin with, I want to say that of course everything has not been perfect. But the extra services are a fairly good start. It cannot be denied that these women went to work in the morning. They were in a department at a nursing home where they were useful and needed. They loaded and unloaded the dishwasher between all the meals in the dining room or the cafeteria. They baked bread, which was incredibly appreciated. I am not prepared to go as far as to say that this played no role or to call it storage.
It has been significant for them to have an extra job and be at a workplace to learn the language. Why remove it completely instead of continuing to work with it? How can one move forward? How can we develop the skills of women, which it has often been about, in the extra jobs at elderly care homes so that they can become nursing assistants? Why has this not been done?
The Minister also mentions that people are allowed to establish themselves here. I must nevertheless take the opportunity to ask about that. I am confounded, because the government rarely says that people are welcome here. On the contrary, it is said that people are not welcome here. One is prepared to pay quite a lot of tax money to have people who are already established leave the country. At the same time, we have both a great need for competence and a shortage of competence.
Instead, it is said that people are not welcome, and if they are here, they should not stay here. That the government then stands here and speaks about integration sounds very strange.
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Mats Persson (L)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the member for her commitment to these issues.
It is important for Sweden that we continue to conduct a strict immigration policy. Our society has taken a very large responsibility for Europe's refugee policy for very many years, to such an extent that we have reached the conclusion that Sweden cannot take the entire responsibility or an equally large responsibility for all the people who come to Europe as Sweden has done previously. We therefore need to have a strict immigration policy so that we have the prerequisites to integrate the people who are in Sweden.
We simultaneously need immigration of people with high competence, that is, highly qualified labor, who come here and can work from day one. Sweden will most likely need more of such immigration. But a strict immigration policy is important for the integration policy to function.
Mr. Speaker! It is important to have a policy that has high expectations of people. When one comes to Sweden, one receives many opportunities. One gains access to the Swedish welfare society, but one also has expectations on oneself to live up to one's duty to learn the language, seek work, and do everything one can to support oneself. This applies not least to women born abroad. For them, there is a palette of measures so that they can receive help, but they also have a very large personal responsibility.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.