Arbetskraft från tredje land: Effekter på den svenska arbetsmarknaden

Abstract

Non-European labour migration has become a regularly discussed political issue, portrayed variously as a threat or a benefit for the domestic labour market. Since 2008, Sweden has had the most liberal labour migration policy within the OECD. The purpose of this thesis is to statistically investigate whether the volume of labour migration may cause a displacement effect. The thesis examines whether the granted work permits can have had a causal effect of increasing the degree of unemployment in the Swedish administrative regions between 2010 and 2018. Furthermore, the analysis statistically investigates whether or not labour migration has had an impact on economic growth per capita within the regions. The theories behind other aspects of labour market policy that are impacted by migration such as industry-specific effects and effectiveness regarding matching theory are also discussed and analysed. In order to compute the analysis, data has been retrieved primarily from Statistics Sweden (SCB, Sweden’s national statistics authority) and the Swedish Migration Agency. The statistical method applied is an OLS regression with regarded time and entity fixed effects. The conclusions drawn from this thesis acknowledge the results of previous research which shows that labour migration has no major effect on the degree of unemployment. Furthermore, the results show an increase in economic growth per capita due to labour migration. The statistical results were not significant but are strongly supported by economic theory. The conclusion of the thesis indicates that there is no general displacement effect caused by labour migration and that it is profitable for society. Effects that are not statistically investigated by this thesis are also presented as proposals for future research.