In Sweden 80 per cent of the unemployed
have access to the Internet. The first job listing on the Internet site
of Arbetsförmedlingen was posted in September 1995.
The Swedish Public Employment Service was one of the first in Europe
to open a website with interactive solutions. Companies can search an
online CV database with 140,000 names.
The jobseekers can look for vacancies or sign up to receive emails
as soon as a suitable job-offer is available. Today 850,000 people use
the site every month.
“All the public employment services in Europe have services on the
Internet, including the East European countries, who are catching up
very fast. There are also scores of commercial job-sites”, says Göran
Åhman, Head of Section, Employment Service Systems at
Arbetsförmedlingen.
Make the service better
Now the time has come to integrate the electronic services even
better.
“We are working a lot with multichanneling, how to complement the
Internet with personal service and with the local employment offices.
This autumn we will also introduce the possibility to register as
unemployed online, instead of having to meet up personally at the local
office, which has been the rule so far.”
Since March 2007, 15,000 unemployed have tried this out at 14
employment offices. The reactions have been positive. Göran Åhman
thinks a more open and transparent labour market is the biggest benefit
of the Internet services. It also speeds up the process of matching a
vacancy with an unemployed.
“We have made studies a few years ago that show that the vacancy
database and other services also have a positive effect on the labour
market, but it is very hard to pinpoint the reason for an
improvement.”
Swamped by applications
A possible negative side effect is that the companies risk being
swamped by job applications. The threshold to send an application is
lower, and it is easy to send the same application to many companies,
who have to spend more time going through hundreds of applications to
get the right candidates.
“Actually this hasn’t been so much of a problem. The technology to
search for specific requirements has become much better. We experience
more of the opposite – that the companies are too eager to report
vacancies, and actually hire less than they claim they need.”
This happens especially in professions like telemarketing and taxi
services where the turnover is high.
“I think the main effect of electronic matchmaking is that it speeds
up the process. Even if there was no effect on unemployment you would
still have the benefit of rationalisation – we spend less time handling
each application and can use that time to offer better support for
those who really need it.”
Open information
In Sweden there are more than a dozen companies working with vacancy
databanks. Isn’t there a risk that they will make the Public Employment
Service superfluous or that the government decides to privatise
it?
“I don’t think so. There is no competition between us and the
commercial sites. We are more like the road net which everyone can
travel on. We share all the information we get about vacancies with
Manpower, Stepstone and all the other companies in the employment
services industry. They would never do that. For a private company it
is natural to keep information away from competitors.”
“On our website all the employers are also treated equally. We never
let the companies screen who gets see their job listings. We want
an open publication that everyone can see,” says Göran Åhman.
In the future the information in the database, such as what the
companies ask for when they post a vacancy, could be used to make sure
the vocational training offered is fine-tuned to the needs.
