REVEALED: The 152 jobs that could be excused minimum salary for a Swedish work permit

Local Sweden

3 days ago

The Local sent a freedom of information request to the Swedish Public Employment Service for the list of 152 job titles reported to the Migration Agency as meeting the criteria for exemption from a possible future new salary requirement. Here's the full list.
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What's the background?
Sweden's government in February asked the Migration Agency to "contribute proposals for professions that can be exempted from the higher salary requirement" for work permits proposed by a government inquiry in 2024.
The Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) was asked to help the Migration Agency by producing a list of the jobs for which employers are struggling to fill positions from within Sweden and which also have a typical monthly salary below the 2023 median income of 35,600 kronor.
This list, titled Occupations where the need for labour cannot be met within Sweden, was passed to the Swedish Migration Agency on May 30th this year. The Migration Agency told The Local on Friday it would use this list of 152 professions to produce its own final proposed list by the end of this week.
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How did the Public Employment Service make its list?
The service started by calculating that 323 of the 429 job titles in Sweden's official job categorisation system had a lowest salary according to collective bargaining agreements or actual data which was below the 2013 median salary of 35,600 kronor.
It then looked at which roles employers were struggling to recruit for either nationally or in a specific region, reducing the number of job titles to 152.
What's on the list?
Several categories of IT workers make the list, with game developers, system testers, and system administrators all named as shortage professions that potentially pay below the median wage.
Roles in academia, such as PhD students, research assistants, and "other university and higher education" are also included.
Many different categories of engineers make the list, including civil engineers, chemical engineers, electrical engineers, construction engineers, machine engineers and mining engineers.
Education also features highly, with teachers at upper secondary, lower secondary and primary level, and preschool level all included, along with after-school activities teachers, vocational teachers and more.
Healthcare is also a big component, with junior house doctors making the list along with just about every category of nurse, nursing assistant and care worker.
There were also a significant number of roles from the hotel and restaurant industry, including chefs, sous-chefs, pantry chefs, and pastry chefs.
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What's the point of this list?
Arguably, not that much. It is purely advisory as there is no existing legislation to which these proposed exceptions could apply.
The current salary threshold for work permits, set at 80 percent of the median salary, is based on legislation that does not allow for exceptions.
For a list like this to be applied, the government first needs to pass a bill in parliament bringing in the system of work permits proposed by a government inquiry in February last year (which proposed raising the salary threshold to 100 percent of the median salary). It has so far not even submitted a draft bill to the Council of Legislation, the first stage in this process.
Mats Persson, the employment and integration minister who asked for the list to be prepared, was replaced at the end of June.
You can see the full list of jobs below. Note the arrow to move to the next page in the top right hand corner.