People who have undergone a shorter education period - who have not, for example, completed an upper secondary-level education - face particular difficulties on the Swedish labour market, according to a new report from the Swedish Public Employment Service. The report shows that the number of unemployed people who lack upper secondary-level education and are registered with the Employment Service has increased by 30 000 people to a total of 117 000 people in the last ten years. This group of unemployed people with no or 'short' education comprises, to a large extent, women who have migrated to Sweden. 

Two-thirds of the short-educated registered unemployed were born outside Europe, and a majority are women. Among unemployed women born outside Europe nearly three-quarters did not complete primary school education.

It takes longer for foreign-born women to establish themselves on the labour market than men. The Public Employment Service says that this makes it particularly important to work with the group in the long-term, identifying and eliminating obstacles to these women's labour market access in order to take advantage of their employment potential.

The report finds that educational efforts are crucial, and more efforts are needed. For short-educated people, a chain of interventions is often needed: these are mainly educational interventions decisive in the long-term strengthening of the position of the short-educated on the labor market. It is an issue for both labour market policy and for other policy areas, especially that of education.

In order to strengthen the situation of short-educated migrants on the labor market in the long term, and to break the trend of an increasing number of unemployed short-educated people without work, educational interventions - such as municipal adult education and vocational training - are crucial. For the unemployed who cannot access higher level education, subsidised employment is also suggested in the report as beneficial.