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Swedish IT industry bemoans slow and long processing times for immigrant badly needed skills

Monday, 22 July 2013
Swedish IT companies are having trouble finding badly needed skills in Sweden. Therefore, many are now recruiting from abroad – not within the EU but around the world. Nevertheless, the Swedish Migration Board’s long turnaround time of work is hindering company’s ability to gain access to these skills bring them to Sweden.

According to Swedish TI industry organization, the IT and Telecom Industries or as know in Swedish IT- och Telekomföretagen, there enormous difficulties with the Swedish Migration Board turnaround time. “It takes like three weeks to get an answer to an email, and you have to put in long telephone queues. When you get an answer, it is from someone else and it is difficult to understand the answer. It’s incredibly frustrating, time consuming, and will now actually result in crises for individuals, clients and ourselves,” said IT entrepreneur Carl-Johan Hamilton, founder and co-owner of an IT company in Stockholm to Radio Sweden.

Information Technology His company has previously hired individuals from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh because they have trouble finding enough people with the right skills here at home.

Now he has been waiting for months to get clearance from the Migration Board for a work permit for an additional nine employees who have an IT job waiting in Sweden.

The Swedish IT industry is growing by about five percent per year. In 2011 there were 178 000 people in Sweden employees in the IT sector, spreading over about 17 000 different companies.

But the long processing times at the Migration Board is detrimental to the development of the Swedish IT companies because the labour is sought after in many parts of the world. Anne-Marie Fransson, who is Director of the Association at the trade organization IT and Telecom companies, told Radio Sweden:

“There is such competition in the IT specialists that they get jobs somewhere else, and we miss out on good skills. The IT industry is totally dependent on the availability of skills, so this is very important for Sweden as a whole,” says Anne-Marie Fransson.

The Swedish Migration Board says that the problems with the long processing times are largely due to improperly completed of applications. The Swedish government late last year commissioned the Migration Board to reduce processing times.
by Scancomark.com Team