Sweden – Networking better than labour-market training says Arbetsförmedlingen

Labour-market training, meant to prep job seekers for work, no longer has the desired effect, Sweden’s jobs agency said on Monday. Networking was still the best way to find a job last year. 

The job-specific training, known as arbetsmarknadsutbildning, has been one of the more costly initiatives to get job seekers into work, the agency (Arbetsförmedlingen) noted in its annual report.

“It’s serious that the most expensive measure no longer increases the chance of finding work,” head analyst Mats Wadman told the TT news agency.

Finding jobs through friends, families and business connections still trumped all other ways of finding work. Seven out of ten jobs in Sweden were found through a job seeker’s personal network, the report noted.

The agency analyst said there were several reasons why the labour-market training was no longer as effective.

In 2007, the government removed the requirement that 70 percent of job seekers enrolled in labour-market training ended up in employment after 90 days. The reform could have made agency workers less selective in picking job seekers who would get the most out of the training, Wadman theorized.

“It has meant that individual agency workers might not be as careful with the selection,” Wadman said.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Networking key to seven in ten Swedish jobs – The Local.