“People are missing the positive situation we’ve seen in recent years,” Nordea economist Anna Westlund said.
Foreign-born people living in Sweden have found it easier to find work since the pandemic years, often in service roles like healthcare, retail and hospitality, according to Nordea's study.
“There has been a noticeable increase after the pandemic,” said Westlund, who specialises in labour market issues.
At the end of 2025, 12 percent of immigrants were unemployed compared to 3.5 percent of Swedes, with the gap between both groups shrinking from 12 to 8.5 percent since 2020.
When it comes to number of people who are working, a figure referred to as the sysselsättningsgraden, the gap between the two groups is even smaller ‒ 70 percent of people born in Sweden have jobs, with that figure at 62 percent for immigrants.
That gap is largest in southern Sweden and smallest in northern Sweden, which reflects broader trends in the labour market. Generally speaking, unemployment is lowest in the north and highest in the south.
Many immigrants living in Sweden arrived in 2015 during the refugee crisis. They've now been in Sweden for more than a decade, which is being reflected in employment figures.
"Getting established on the labour market takes time," Westlund said, "especially in Sweden where the requirements are quite high. We have a very small amount of what we usually refer to as simple jobs."
Immigrants living in Sweden also have a higher employment rate than immigrants living elsewhere in the EU, according to the report, although the gap between immigrants and native citizens is larger in Sweden than the EU average.
There's also potential to raise the employment rate for people born outside of Sweden even more in the future, with the situation on the labour market generally expected to improve.
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