(edit title) Moving to Sweden from Peru Various info, advice, and experiences Options

[urubambina]

Hi everyone

I am new here and have not managed to trawl through all the pages and pages of interesting topcs that everyone has covered. So sorry if I go over a topic which has already been covered.

I and my Peruvian husband are currently living in Cusco, Peru and are considering the pros and cons of moving to the UK or to Sweden (I have family and friends in both countries due to dual nationality and speak Swedish).

I wondered if there were many Latinos out there who made the move to Sweden and how they found the differences. Living in Uppsala I found there was a small community there, what about elsewhere? What are the difficulties of coming over as a spouse, especially from somewhere like Peru?
Also what are the chances of finding jobs, are there any swedish job sites like Monster, etc, that I can check out? Any other advise that you can pass on would be great.

Thanks!!
Saludos from Peru.

[Furu]

finding a job in today's economy will be hard. finding a job in Sweden without speaking Swedish will be very hard.

Sweden was rated top in the world in terms of child welfare this year by Unesco. UK does not even comes close. you can read more at

http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf

So it depends what are your priorities.

[B.b]

i dont mean to be rude or disrespectfull but stay in cuzco i think you are better off or maybe spain the culture shock will be quite different...for your husband, have you ever lived in sweden

[Furu]

and the weather.

[B.b]

yeah.. but cuzco does get cold up in the andes not as cold and gray as here do

[Northernline]

First of all, are you sure that you and your husband will be able to physically adapt to the increased atmospheric pressure in .eg. Uppsala? You might feel nauseous with a headache for the first 6 months...

Seriously though, sites like Monster are good, but the strongest recommendation would be to assess whether you/your husband have skills and education that would be desirable in Sweden, as well as immediately taking steps to learn Swedish. Otherwise, frankly, it will not be worth it.

[Kibiri]

Monster has swedish version: http://www.monster.se
http://www.ams.se is the national recruitement agency or whatever it is called in english.
Most companies dont hire directly but use a HR company to do the prior screening which kinda sucks for various reasons and makes the process much longer than it needs to be.

[kerostarfx]

urubambina -

I'm in Linköping and there are a few Latinos that I've met from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico...

I'm Mexican-American, anyway the big difference is definitely in FOOD! I'm always importing food when I go back home, lol.

One of the main things I noticed about Sweden, is that...well if you're not a Swede it's pretty much hard to blend in! It's not like in the U.S: where you'll probably find communities/neighborhoods of Peruvians!

As for jobs, yes those websites mentioned above are very popular...but another thing that I noticed is that companies like for you to visit. So I would gather a list of companies and hand in your CV personally, it shows Swedes that you're serious about working! I've gotten a few interviews this month that way!

[PageyGB]

Hello,
I actually know a Peruvian couple here in Stockholm. the woman is half Swedish and the husband is 100% Peru. They love it here. In Stockholm there are lots of Peruvians, Chileans and other Latino's and there will be no problem with commuinity.
My Wifes family are all from Chile and they all have jobs and feel more Swedish than anything now. The only thing is to work is to start at the bottom and work up. You may be flipping burgers or cleaning floors etc.
However, at the moment the job market sucks. Not a great time to make a move. Make sure you have some money to fall back on and somewhere to live before thinking about coming over.

[urubambina]

Thanks everyone for your input.

Obviously in the economic climate as it is at the moment a move is something that seriously needs to be considered. As nice as it is in Cusco,which isnt as warm as many people think, we are ready for a change and as much as I love being here I fancy going back to Europe, which my family in England and Sweden are pretty keen for, and my husband is ready for a change too.

As I have a lot of family and friends in Sweden we have a base from where to start from, most likely in Stockholm, or Linköping. But obviously we don't want to be too reliant for too long.

We are young, we are very adaptable and are willing to start in anything.. I have spent the last two years or so working in a volunteer organisation here and my husband has a restaurant here. If possible I would like to try and continue in a similar sector, but if not, no problem. Besides also having alot of restaurant experience, my husband is a trained apiculturist, my aunt once mentioned that this was an area in which there were shortages in Sweden - I was also wondering if anyone knew anything further about this)

I already speak Swedish, so thats no problem and my husband is starting to learn. As obviously language is the most important (many people find that coming here to Peru with hardly any Spanish at all!

Its great to know that there is some community out there - if nothing else to reminisce about the good and the bad that exists in Peru : )

Anyway Thanks everyone and if anyone else has any tips then don't hesitate to let me know!

Gracias!

[*Griselda Quintana*]

Hi Urubambina!
I wish i would have seen your post before, hope you still read this. Im from peru and very recently moved to stockholm with my swedish sambo.
We talked and discussed about this moving for several months and tried to plan it the best way (although there are always things you cannot plan). Anyway, the thing is that of course there is a little bit of a cultural shock and everything but i kindly disagree with most of the posts here. We focused on getting things going here and everything has been running smoothly. I have pretty much everything i need and im starting swedish classes very very soon.
I was also involved with volunteer work on development and my career has been related to that. So maybe if you still want to move here or to the UK (i also worked there a little bit) maybe we can talk!
Let me know (i hope you can send me a private message cause for some reason i cannot send it to you).

kind regards,

Gisse.

[Plowbridge]

Good luck but make sure you leave your panpipes at home. There are enough tuneless troupes playing the same tortuous tripe in and around Stockholm and they are a menace to a peaceful environment.

[Benzed]

There are a fairly good chunk of Chileans living in Göteborg, somebody once explained to me why this is but I've forgotten in the meantime. I know a couple of Peruvian lads play in the main rugby team here, giants of men they are too ironically enough considering in the 5 weeks I was in Peru I never saw anyone larger than a tv remote.

Anyway, Cuzco - what a place. I'll swap homes with you for 6 months if you like? I fancy a return to the Inca trail, sans diarrhea this time ideally.