THE YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT SITUATION IN SWEDEN

Abstract

This study has intended to understand overall youth unemployment situation in Sweden. This study consists of six chapters. Introduction is the first chapter and the second chapter presents previous studies including international perspective of youth unemployment situation in the European context as well as in Sweden. In addition, background to the development of Swedish youth employment policy and types of government programmes targeted youth and studies on effectiveness of policies are outlined. The theoretical framework and important concepts have been discussed in the chapter third. The fourth chapter contains methodological description. The results and analysis of the study are presented in the fifth chapter. The chapter six presents conclusion and discussions as well as suggestions for future research. This study has employed qualitative method and conducted semi-structured interviews for youth and professionals. In total 9 people were interviewed; five unemployed young people, two with immigrant backgrounds and four professionals. The study shows that unemployed youth experience many types of social exclusions among these were exclusion from the labour market due to a lack of job experiences or mismatching of job qualifications; economic exclusion due to a lack of basic income that allows them to participate in the same types of activities as other young people with jobs. Youth unemployed tended to be dependent on their parents or the state welfare for survival. The finding showed that youth had several coping strategies to combat social exclusion; often they had a high degree of family support, and other networks such as friends, organisations, the social services and employment offices. However, this study has shown that youth from working class backgrounds and youth with immigrant backgrounds do not find it easy to get network support that leads to jobs. Another finding was that government policies and active labour market programmes targeted at youth can be understood as mechanisms for combating social exclusion and that they are of particular important for youth because of the provide youth with a foothold in the labour market through practice jobs.