Hard work

On the website of Swedish business daily Dagens Industri this week is an article (in Swedish only, I'm afraid) entitled "Drygt arbete att få jobb i Sverige", which (very) roughly translates as "Hard work to get a job in Sweden".

It quotes three highly qualified Europeans who came to Sweden for varying reasons and attempted to find work.

One of the three, an English woman who spent two years seeking a job to suit her IT consulting background, makes what I believe is a valid point when she says that she believes even Swedish companies whose business language is English would rather employ a Swede who speaks English than an English person who speaks Swedish.

A second says that, in her view, Swedish firms mistakenly say that they want people who think differently and think outside the box, but that when it comes down to it they don't, and I can see that this is an area where any people from outside Sweden can lose out on jobs. I think that often our cultural differences are most apparent in the way in which we work and how we handle situations that arise in our working lives.

I am glad to see a widely read newspaper (at least in Sweden) taking up a story like this and I only hope that things begin to change.

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