Inside Sweden: What does an 80s finance minister have to do with Sweden's work permit plans?
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Hej,
In 1983, the Swedish parliament voted to introduce employee funds (löntagarfonder), an attempt to challenge private ownership of companies by taxing profits and putting them into special funds controlled by the unions.
It was a highly controversial scheme, and even Finance Minister Kjell-Olof Feldt's heart wasn't really in it, but the unions were too strong and so the Social Democrats managed to win the vote in parliament and introduce the funds.
They were later scrapped after the conservatives won the election in 1991, and the Social Democrats have never attempted to bring them back ever since.
But the reason why most Swedes remember them is completely different.
During the parliamentary debate about their introduction, photographer Paolo Rodiquez from local newspaper Stockholms-Tidningen managed to snap a picture of Kjell-Olof Feldt, who spent the debate penning a poem.
Löntagarfonder är ett jävla skit, men nu har vi baxat dem ända hit, read the first line on a scrap piece of paper on Feldt's desk. Or, in English: "Employee funds are a piece of crap, but we've lugged them all the way to where we're at."
I was reminded of this story when immigration and relocation expert Lena Rekdal quoted Feldt's poem on LinkedIn, in the context of the plans to raise the work permit salary threshold to 100 percent of the median, with exemptions.
The list of 152 job titles which could be exempted from a higher salary threshold was published by the Migration Agency this week (although The Local was able to reveal the full list a few days earlier), but there have been few signs from the government that they're actually moving forward with it.
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It's hard to find anyone who's fully in support of the whole thing. Businesses worry a higher threshold will make it harder to recruit and don't want to rely on a list of exemptions based on very clunky metrics, relocation experts warn it's going to slow down permit processing times, and you barely even have to read between the lines to be able to tell that the Migration Agency itself thinks it's all just too much of a hassle for something that won't yield a lot of results.
And if exemptions are needed for, potentially, 152 jobs out of the 429 jobs on Sweden's official list of job titles, that means that the higher salary threshold is unsuitable for over a third of Swedish job titles. What's the point, then?
Even the government itself seems to be hesitating, as the higher salary threshold plus exemptions were supposed to have come into force earlier this summer, but haven't yet made their way into a draft bill.
So is this going to be something that gets quietly buried and forgotten about, or will it become another piece of jävla skit that the government thinks it may as well push through now that it has lugged it all the way to where we're at?
We'll see. I probably won't be here for it, though, as I'm writing this Inside Sweden on my last day before I go on maternity leave until spring. I'll hopefully be in touch with you again next year, but until then, it will be my Deputy Editor Becky Waterton and Nordic Editor Richard Orange manning the fort.
In other news
Sweden's security checks are likely to slow down the processing of citizenship applications further than previously estimated, a new forecast suggests.
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Summer in Sweden is special: on that our readers are agreed. When we asked, they praised the days that stretch past 10pm, the natural, uncrowded beaches and lakes, berries, and locals who are suddenly carefree and smiling.
Swedish summers are often wet, as some of you may have noticed this week, with downpours more common during the warmer months. Who is responsible if your home floods, and what can you do to prevent damage?
The European Commission has laid out the start date for the long-delayed biometric passport checks known as the Entry & Exit System.
Differing interest rates between Sweden's banks mean that mortgage holders could save thousands of kronor by switching banks or negotiating a new rate.
Thanks as always for reading and take care,
Emma
Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It's published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.
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