The survey, carried out by Novus, found that 92 percent of Swedes believe it is "important" or "very important" that foreigners become "part of Swedish society", nearly two-thirds (64 percent) believe that it should be easier for foreigners to stay in Sweden if they have a job, and that less than a quarter (24 percent) support the government's most controversial (and now suspended) proposal to revoke permanent residency permits already held by many foreigners.
Andreas Bergh and Torbjörn Sjöström, the CEO and board member at Globeknot, the newly launched non-profit organisation that ordered the survey, argued in the Dagens Industri newspaper that the findings should come as a warning.
“We see a clear risk that Swedish politicians, in their eagerness to demonstrate decisiveness, are pursuing a migration policy that is perceived as rigid, heartless, and contrary to what most voters want," they wrote.
Bergh, an associate professor of economics at Lund University, traced the political overreach back to the aftermath of the European refugee crisis of 2015, when politicians in Sweden ended a longstanding informal agreement not to make restricting immigration a political issue.
"The incentives for politicians changed, so suddenly they wanted to win votes by coming down hard on migration," he told The Local. "Now the data shows what we already suspected, that this has now led to a situation where the policies being put in place are more restrictive than what most people prefer."
Foreign workers welcome...
The survey's findings suggest that the public makes a clear distinction between labour migration and asylum migration, with an overwhelming majority of respondents agreeing that people who follow the law and support themselves should be able to stay in the country.
This included even 60 percent of those who support the anti-immigration Sweden Democrat party, 71 percent of those who support the Moderates, Liberal and Christian Democrats (the three government parties), and fully 92 percent of the four left and centre-left opposition parties.
When asked whether it should be easier or harder for a foreigner to stay in Sweden if they have a job, 81 percent of respondents said it should be easier. This included 64 percent of Sweden Democrat supporters, 80 percent of government party supporters, and 88 percent of opposition supporters.
Bergh said that this suggested that even the government's own supporters did not want people who are employed in Sweden on the basis of work permits to get deported – either because of the new salary thresholds, the abolition of the track change rule, or renewal issues.
"In all these cases, the government has decided on very harsh policies, which means that there have been a number of cases where people have been or will be forced to leave Sweden, even though they've done nothing wrong, and in many cases, are working in highly qualified jobs and paying taxes," he said.
This support for foreign workers could reflect self-interest as well as a sense of fairness, he continued, speculating that the public increasingly realised that the working-age population in Sweden would struggle to support the significantly larger baby boomer generation now going into retirement and requiring health and elderly care.
"People realise that we basically need people from other countries to do all the jobs that need to be done," he said.
You can see the high level of support for working foreigners in the two graphs below.
- Blue = Moderates, Liberals and Christian Democrats (the government)
- Orange = Social Democrats, Left Party, Green Party and Centre Party (the opposition)
- Yellow = Sweden Democrats
- Green = Total
- Grey = Uncertain
... but not all immigrants
It would be too simplistic, however, to interpret the survey as showing a swing in favour of immigration.
The share of respondents in favour of Sweden deporting more foreigners (42 percent) still marginally outweighs the share which is against (36 percent).
Fully 94 percent of Sweden Democrats wanted more deportations, 58 percent of government supporters, and 15 percent of opposition supporters.
Bergh said this could be the flip side to voters' belief that foreigners who work and obey the law should be allowed to stay.
"That suggests that people think that if you break the laws, you should not be allowed to stay," he said. "That's one hypothesis as to how those two answers can be reconciled."
While the public seemed increasingly in favour of labour migration the experience of the refugee crisis – when Sweden took in more refugees per capita than any other country in Europe – appears not to have been forgotten.
"I think it is fair to say that public opinion is still quite sceptical towards large inflows of refugee migrants," Bergh concluded. "But the policies we are seeing now are also coming down very hard on labour force migration. And I think people make a distinction between the two."
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