Unemployment is a hot topic in the run-up to Sweden’s general elections on 13 September. The country has had relatively high unemployment for several years already.
Read this article in Swedish on Arbeidsliv i Norden
There is broad agreement that, as society changes, the labour market needs to respond to the need to put the right person in the right place through skills provision and matching.
For this article, the Nordic Labour Journal has spoken to the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (TCO) about its skills policy programme, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise about its recruitment survey and subsequent report and to Greater Copenhagen which for the second year is reporting on the opportunities for matching workers and jobs across Öresund.
Skills policy programme
“We have far too many unemployed people while employers are looking for staff with the right skills,” says Therese Svanström, President of TCO. The confederation represents twelve trade unions with more than 1.2 million professionals and white-collar workers as members.
Among these, there is a great need for what TCO calls the topping up of skills.
In March this year, this politically independent central organisation published a skills policy programme called “Everything starts with jobs”.
“The labour market is undergoing a huge transformation driven by the green transition, AI and digitalisation. We need to renew and refresh people’s skills to meet the demands of the new, emerging jobs,” says Therese Svanström.
She says there is a lack of a coherent vision for the future of work and calls for labour market policies with a clear political goal for full employment.
TCO’s skills policy programme underlines the importance of education.
In the programme’s foreword, Therese Svanström writes that a well-educated population is one of the cornerstones if you are going to meet the need for skills.
She and her organisation are calling both for “more education in labour market policy” and more “labour market in education policy”.
They conclude that the education system needs to provide high-quality education both to those who are on their way into the labour market and to those who are already working, while also offering retraining opportunities for those who need to change careers.
When asked how the programme has been welcomed, Therese Svanström says it has been as expected.
”Many politicians and employers do agree that this is how it looks now, and that we need to do something about the challenges.”
Rising number of unemployed graduates
A claim that the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise agrees with.
“We are seeing challenges across all sectors, throughout Sweden and among all types of companies. Despite long-term unemployment, companies are struggling to recruit.”
This is according to Ulrika Wallén, a policy expert on higher education policy at the organisation, which represents 60,000 small, medium-sized and large companies through their respective industry associations.
According to the “Skills for growth 2025/2026″ recruitment survey published by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise in March this year, one in four recruitment attempts fail because companies cannot find people with the right skills.
This has several negative consequences, according to Ulrika Wallén.
“When skills shortages become a barrier to growth, companies are forced to turn down business and contracts.
“This has a negative impact on profitability and weakens Sweden’s capacity for innovation, competitiveness and prosperity. That’s why we are pursuing these issues, while also seeking to add nuance to the debate.”
The recruitment survey concluded that the main obstacle to recruitment is the lack of relevant work experience, followed by a lack of the right attitude and relevant qualifications.
The current imbalance between education and employers’ demands for skills takes several forms. One is reflected in statistics from Akademikernas a-kassa (Sweden’s largest unemployment insurance fund) that shows unemployment among academics in 2025 was at its highest level for ten years.
Reform is needed
For the past five years, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise has published annual figures on employment rates and median income one and three years after graduation for different higher-education programmes on its Högskolepejl platform, to show how relevant different qualifications are to the labour market.
“Students choose their education because they want the opportunity to build a career and earn a good salary. But we have programmes that are closely aligned with the labour market and some that are far removed from it. That is why we can say that we’re educating people for the wrong jobs.”
Based on the report Quality, relevance and efficiency in Swedish higher education from a skills provision perspective – a comparison with and insights from six other countries: Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland and Belgium, published by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise in 2025, Ulrika Wallén argues that, in Sweden – unlike in countries including its Nordic neighbour to the south – it is student demand that determines the number of places available on higher-education programmes.
“In Denmark, the needs of the labour market set the direction. They have reformed their higher education system to a much greater extent that we have in Sweden.
“Although we have also reviewed higher education, we have not gone far enough with our reforms, nor have we had enough debate about it, and to some extent we have taken certain things for granted,” she says.
She points out that students themselves also want education that leads to jobs and therefore believe their demand should be balanced against the needs of the labour market.
The aim of Ulrika Wallén’s work is to persuade the government to reform higher education so that it can deliver the skills that businesses need.
She therefore welcomes the government’s announcement in July 2026 that it will commission an inquiry into how higher-education institutions can better align their range of programmes with the needs of the labour market.
“We have managed to contribute to the government’s work on drawing up the terms of reference for the forthcoming inquiry, and we have also put forward proposals for what a new funding model could look like. This is a step in the right direction,” says Ulrika Wallén.
Untapped potential for matching
So what is the situation in Denmark?
The Nordic Labour Journal takes the train across the Öresund Bridge to meet Jan Juul Christiansen, managing director of Greater Copenhagen, an organisation whose members include 85 municipalities and four regions in eastern Denmark and southern Sweden.
“When Copenhagen Airport is expanded next year, SAS is not worried about the finances. What they are worried about is whether they will be able to recruit enough staff,” he says.
The observation captures the challenges facing the Copenhagen area because of labour shortages. It is the opposite of the situation in several municipalities on the other side of the Öresund.
When Jan Juul Christiansen took over as head of Greater Copenhagen in August 2024, he began focusing on the potential for matching workers and jobs within the region’s shared labour market.
“I could see that one of our most important tasks is to both generate growth and create an even more integrated labour market in our region by looking more closely at this difference and the potential that exists,” says Jan Juul Christiansen.
Last year, Greater Copenhagen published their first report on the matching potential in Greater Copenhagen.
This year saw the second, updated version of Labour across Öresund – the matching potential in i Greater Copenhagen.
The report shows there are eight sectors in the Copenhagen area facing labour shortages while there is a surplus of workers in Skåne, on the other side of the sound. The sectors are:
- Construction
- Sales
- Hospitality and catering
- Electronics
- IT
- Education
- Administration
- Health and social care
The matching potential that Greater Copenhagen describes is based on the short geographical distance between Sweden and Denmark which also means short commutes.
The Helsingborg – Helsingør ferry takes 20 minutes
Trains run across the Öresund Bridge between Sweden and Denmark several times every hour, not only during rush hours but most of the day and night. Those getting on in Malmö Hyllie, the first and last station on the Swedish side, only have a journey of around 18 minutes to Copenhagen Airport.
The main purpose of Greater Copenhagen’s reports is to encourage national decision-makers to get rid of border barriers between the Nordic countries to promote the freedom of movement that was introduced in 1954.
It states that “it should be possible to move, commute, study and run businesses across national borders in the Nordic region without the risk of facing border barriers or other mobility problems”.
These are the border barriers that the Nordic Labour Journal has written extensively about over the years and continue to monitor during the annual border barrier meetings organised by Øresunddirekt and Øresundsinstituttet with support from the Nordic Council of Ministers, held in this the southernmost of the Nordic countries’ regions.
“If the matching potential becomes a reality, it will not only benefit unemployed people and employers around Öresund, but also Southern Sweden, Eastern Denmark and the nation states; i.e. the whole of Denmark and Sweden,” says Jan Juul Christiansen.
He has already scheduled a meeting with Danish parliamentarians who are dealing with labour market issues and hopes to meet their Swedish counterparts once Sweden has a new government after elections on 13 September.
“For the first time, the Nordic cooperation got a mention in a Danish government programme when the new Danish government started work in June this year. That’s an indication that the Nordic region has become more important,” he says.
It is worth adding that when the Öresund Bridge turned 25 last year, the Danish and Swedish prime ministers signed a joint declaration which states:
“A well-integrated labour market in the Öresund region is important to ensure that businesses have sufficient access to skilled labour, which in turn supports economic growth in the region.”
Government initiatives
Some examples of initiatives aimed at increasing skills provision and reducing long-term unemployment launched by the Swedish government in the latest parliamentary term:
The Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Delegation was appointed by the government in February 2025 to strengthen the conditions for more people to develop the interest and knowledge needed to apply for and complete an education in STEM subjects.
Long-term unemployment investigation
The high long-term unemployment levels will be investigated. This was announced by the Swedish Ministry of Employment in a press release on 10 August this year, which states that 43 per cent of those registered with the Swedish Public Employment Service in February this year had been unemployed long-term.
There will be an analysis of why long-term unemployment has become entrenched despite the Swedish Public Employment Service’s efforts to support this group.
Read about more initiatives and measures here (in Swedish).
