Umeå in focus as jobs tour continues
On Tuesday 15 November, Erik Ullenhag, Hillevi Engström and Tobias Billström visited Umeå on the second trip of their joint jobs tour to learn more about, and get ideas for, how the skills of people born abroad can better be used.
Minister for Integration Erik Ullenhag, Minister for Employment Hillevi Engström and Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy Tobias Billström
"If it works in Umeå it should work everywhere," say Maryam Osman and Fritz Sprung, the founders of Rajo.
The visit began at Rajo, a company that works on developing new companies owned and run by Somalis. Rajo, which means hope in Somali, works a lot with computers and the Internet as tools and believes that digitisation is important for integration. Together with private actors and Umeå Municipality, they have developed a computer with specially adapted software and multi-language support, which will be used in Swedish for Immigrants classes, among other things.
The ministers were also able to use Skype to listen to the experiences of a Somali businessman who has lived and started businesses in Sweden, and who now lives in Nairobi. The visit ended with an introduction to First Step, a tool to encourage newly arrived immigrants to identify problems and find solutions on the path towards finding a job
Second-hand items help people who need to get into the labour market
Hillevi Engström, Erik Ullenhag and Tobias Billström talking to Per Ericsson, supervisor at Returcentrum
The next visit was to Vännäs Returcentrum, which receives and collects second-hand items that they then sell. The ministers met people who are at different stages on the journey towards, and back to, the labour market. Representatives of Vännäs Municipality and the Swedish Public Employment Service were also present for the visit, and during the subsequent question-and-answer session it emerged that access to work experience placements is always a problem and how important it is to have a driving licence to find work in a small town. There is also demand for language training in connection with work, so that a newly arrived immigrant can begin working immediately, without having to complete Swedish for Immigrants classes first.
Presentation at Umeå University
The last visit of the day was to Umeå University, where the ministers gave a short presentation for students on how we can get more people born abroad into the labour market. Tobias Billström talked about the labour immigration reform and about Sorsele, where Russian workers work in the forest industry, which has had problems finding labour. Erik Ullenhag stressed the importance of fighting discrimination and said that knowledge of Swedish is crucial if newly arrived immigrants are to find a job. Hillevi Engström stressed the role of schools and talked about the Governments various measures to get more people into work. This not only applies to newly arrived immigrants, but also young people and people with disabilities.
During the question-and-answer session that followed, the ministers were asked about fees for foreign students and what has been reinforced in anti-discrimination legislation.
Presentation and question-and-answer session at Umeå University.
