Pandemic stresses already pushed Swedish employment service

 “We are experiencing a very large number of jobseekers at the Employment Service. There is enormous pressure from newly unemployed people who need to register for unemployment benefit. The top priority is to serve them, and people are having a really tough time,” says Åsa Johansson, who heads the department of the Union of Civil Servants representing 6,000 employment service employees.     

The so-called January election completely changed the Public Employment Service’s mandate. Then came the Coronavirus and more than 100,000 have registered as unemployed during March and April as a result.

But the Public Employment Service’s difficulties began with the 2018 elections, which failed to produce a majority government. Thus began months of government negotiations. Not until January 2019 did the Centre Party and the Liberals agree to support a red-green government coalition with Stefan Löfven as Prime Minister.

But their support was not unconditional. Both the supporting parties presented a range of demands, including a reform of the Public Employment Service. The Centre Party and the Liberals criticised what they saw as an inefficient organisation, and demanded that large parts of its operation should be moved to private operators. And it should happen quickly. 

The new organisation should be up and running by 2020, which meant 4,500 people were given their notice and 1,600 were made redundant already in early spring 2019. Many chose to take voluntary redundancy and by the end of 2019 3,500 people had already left the organisation. Around 350 of them have been rehired, but are carrying out different jobs.

Digitalisation was meant to free up time

Many local branches were closed or had their resources cut. The idea was to move as much traditional job matching as possible online, which should also free up time to support those who are far outside of the labour market. At the same time, the entire service was divided into three strands; one serving employers looking for labour, another serving unemployed people and a third running digital services plus helping jobseekers over the telephone.

One of the new functions is called PDM, personal distance meeting. This was added before the January agreement, as part of an efficiency drive. The idea was that the first meeting should be over the telephone, lasting for one hour which would be enough time to gather the necessary information about the job seeker. Only after such a conversation would it be possible to set up a face-to-face meeting. Then the pandemic hit, and the number of new employment benefit applicants skyrocketed. There was a need to quickly arrange more PDMs.

“I was ordered to work with PDM with one day’s notice. Now we’re sat wearing headphones, handling newly unemployed people all day long. And we no longer have 60 minutes for each conversation, only 30,” says Susanne Pettersson-Graff, who has worked for the employment service in Östersund since 1997.

"The Swedish Public Employment Service is facing both internal and external uncertainties,” says Susanne Pettersson-Graff, who carries out so-called personal distance meetings at high speed all day long – while 400-500 people are waiting in a telephone queue.

She divides her work 50/50 between the Public Employment Service and ST. She describes a working day which can almost be compared to working in a call centre, where statistics are kept for the number of successful calls while she can see that 4-500 people are constantly in a queue to be answered. 

Rarely time to rest

“From the start, many of the newly unemployed came from the taxi and hospitality sectors. We now see that an increasing number of academics are registering. Many are having a tough time, but there is not much scope to provide comfort and support. I have an advantage, having been in this job for so long and having experience from a politically controlled authority, but colleagues are telling me they are not doing so well,” says Susanne Pettersson-Graff. 

There is rarely time to rest or reflect, she says, because the calls keep coming. You can manage to carry on if you know that it is temporary, according to Susanne Pettersson-Graff. 

But she adds that today’s difficult situation is partly due to the fact that the organisation had not had time to get back on its feet after notices, redundancies and reorganisation when the virus struck. It was not prepared to deal with the sudden and sharp rise in the number of unemployed people. And the reforms are still not over for the Public Employment Service – it will continue in the coming years. There are also questions surrounding the size of its future funding.

Internal and external uncertainties

“The organisation was in the process of being reconstructed as the pandemic hit, and we didn’t yet know the shape of the working groups and what resources we would be given. Then the Coronavirus came and hit a service already in crisis. Now we are dealing with both internal and external uncertainties,” says Susanne Pettersson-Graff. 

The technical solutions meant to free up time were not yet up and running when the cuts to the service’s work with employers and jobseekers came. As a result, the freed up time has never materialised.

“Digitalisation is a positive thing per se, but there has been too much of an expectation that everyone can deal with it. People who are far removed from the labour market can't do it, and even ‘clever’ job seekers might need some human guidance,” says Susanne Pettersson-Graff. 

“The job cuts were meant to be balanced with digital systems and self-service solutions, but we think the decision-makers overestimated what our customers can deal with. If you are in a personal crisis, you might not be that independent. Those working with PDM are also very pushed and have short amounts of time to spend on each conversation. This is also a strain on staff who wish they could offer more support,” says Åsa Johansson.

The reorganisation into three separate strands also throws up challenges, as there is not enough cooperation between them. Previously, it was easier to strengthen the part of the organisation that needed strengthening. This is more difficult today as each strand has its own budget and separate management structures.

“If we still had the old structure we would have been less vulnerable. We used to be able to work more together regardless of whether we were working with employers or employees,” says Susanne Pettersson-Graff. 

Åsa Johansson mainly works with the authorities, but gets a lot of information both from former colleagues and from trade union reps in the field. In her experience there is a lot of uncertainty around where the service is headed, and the changes that have been imposed are having very different effects on different parts within the Public Employment Service.

The head office and the digital operations might see the developments as progressive and positive, while those who work directly with customers and employers have experienced more changes and bigger cuts. In her role as trade union representative, she has to represent both those who like the changes and those who do not. That is difficult. 

“I have to find a balance between those who think the changes are OK and those who really struggle. I try to explain that we are doing the best we can from a trade union perspective. There will always be some sort of central employment service, but it will not be like before when each jobseeker had their own contact at the jobcentre,” says Åsa Johansson.