German 'tourist' leaves airport home for job offer

The 27-year old German “tourist” who has been living rough in the Gothenburg Landvetter arrivals hall has left the airport after receiving an offer of a job and a place to live by a Stockholm firm.

• German 'tourist' living in Gothenburg airport (13 Feb 12)

“I hope it works out for him. It is fantastic if it has been solved,” said Ingegerd Nejding of the Landvetter border police to Aftonbladet.

The 27-year-old German man had been living at the Gothenburg Landvetter airport for almost three months, having no wish to return to Germany and nowhere to go in Sweden. 

”I am ashamed. I have led a bad life. I have nowhere to go,” the man had said to Aftonbladet's reporter. 

The man slept at the airport's arrivals hall every night, most often in the prayer room. Sometimes he went in to Gothenburg centre but he always returned to the airport at night. 

With no money at all, the man only survived because the airport café supplied him with the occasional meal.

According to Aftonbladet's photographer Thomas Johansson, who saw the man last week, he did not want to divulge his name, if he had a family or who he was meant to have visited in Gothenburg.

“But he said he wanted a job and somewhere to live. I asked if he had a profession and what eduction he had and he answered 'high school'. He was sad and said he'd led a hard life and was ashamed of his situation,” said Johansson to the paper.

But now staff at the airport have told Aftonbladet that the man has been offered employment and accommodation, and that the recruiting Stockholm based company has even sent money for the 27-year-old's airfare to the capital.

And according to the airport border police, this was not the only job offer they received for the man.

“There have been more than one company wanting to give him a job. The latest call we got was from a firm here in Gothenburg, but I don't know what kind of a job it was,” said Anci Nilsson from the border control to local paper Göteborgsposten (GP).

However, the man opted to go to Stockholm and has reportedly left the airport.

“He went to Stockholm yesterday with Malmö Aviation at 4.30pm. He had apparently been offered both work and a place to stay by someone, I heard from the arrivals hall,” Nejding told Aftonbladet.