Karin Källström is a writer for the Liberal News Agency.
In June this year, Statistics Sweden (SCB) updated the median salary in Sweden, which impacts one of the requirements for work permits. With the new median salary of 37,100 kronor, employers are now required to offer a minimum salary of 29,680 kronor to labour immigrants.
The requirement is soon expected to tighten further, as the government aims to raise the wage floor from 80 percent to 100 percent of the median salary.
To avoid severely damaging Sweden's already critical skills shortage, the government has therefore tasked the Swedish Migration Agency (Migrationsverket) and the Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) with developing a list of professions that should be exempted from the salary requirement.
Earlier in July, the agencies presented the list. It is a substantial one, comprising a full 152 professions where the lowest salary is below the median salary, yet the demand for labour cannot be met by Swedes.
The reactions were immediate. Firstly, because a ridiculously large number of occupational categories are proposed for exemption - in 2023 and 2024, a total of 30,000 out of 72,000 work permit applications concerned these very professions. That's more than 40%.
This speaks volumes about how unwelcome the minimum salary requirement reform is. Also, several occupational categories with acute skill shortages are excluded from the list, including bricklayers and scaffolders.
Not exempting these professions will ensure that current problems within the construction industry persist.
It is alarming that a centre-right government shows such little confidence in businesses' own analysis and decision-making regarding their recruitment needs.
Either the government believes it is wise to let inexperienced agencies draw conclusions about Sweden's labour needs based on a years-old job classification list and advertisements on the archaic "Platsbanken" (Arbetsförmedlingen's job bank), after which politicians will decide which professions should be exempted or not. That would be bad enough.
Or, the government is trying to discreetly dismantle the wage requirement, one profession at a time, so cautiously that the Sweden Democrats will not notice. That would simply be embarrassing.
The recruitment needs within the construction industry are significant. However, a new wage floor could make it difficult to hire people from other countries.
Some of those who are definitely noticing the government's contradictory handling of labour immigration are businesses themselves. The skills shortage is already hindering growth—especially in smaller cities.
For some industries, the minimum salary requirement presents an unwelcome choice between a rock and a hard place: either companies are forced to refrain from hiring because the necessary skills are not available within Sweden or the EU, or salaries need to be raised.
Earlier this year, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv) presented figures showing that Sweden's GDP would decrease by 30 billion kronor per year if the minimum salary requirement is raised from 80 to 100 percent.
This GDP loss would, of course, be reduced if many professions are exempted, but it says something about the government's astonishing self-destructiveness at a time when the country's growth is failing to impress anyone.
A far less intrusive approach - than building up new bureaucracy around a vague needs analysis - would have been to require full-time employment and salaries in line with existing collective agreements instead of a fixed minimum salary requirement for work visas.
However, the government's contradictory actions regarding labour immigration may never have been about creating a smart system for the benefit of businesses.
It has been more about accommodating the demands on the Sweden Democrats' latest election posters.