This is according to a new report published as part of Statistics Sweden’s (SCB) work on the government assignment ‘Work in Sweden', aimed at attracting and retaining international talent.

Of all the labour immigrants from outside the EU/EEA who were first registered for work in Sweden in 2021, 6 660 remained employed by the end of 2022. They were employed by 2 930 local units - a marginal share, less than 0.5 percent of all local units in Sweden with a registered general payroll tax.

Most labour immigrants worked in the business sector

A large majority of the labour immigrants worked within the business sector (92 percent). This is a clear overrepresentation compared to the total number of employees at local units in the sector, which was 71 percent.

- We see that most local units with international recruitment were found within the business sector. This sector employed 9 out of 10 labour immigrants from outside the EU/EEA. The immigrants were also overrepresented within knowledge-intensive industries with higher qualification requirements, as stated by Evelina Sundin, economist at SCB.

Nearly half of labour immigrants were employed in either the Information and communication or the Industrial services industry. This contrasts with the overall workforce, where only 18 percent of employees worked in one of these two industries.

The largest industry in terms of total number of employees in Sweden were Hospital care and social welfare. However, only a small share of labour immigrants was employed within Human health and social welfare establishments, which are administrated at the regional level. According to the national Job openings and recruitment needs survey (Job openings and recruitment needs), Human health and social welfare was the industry with the largest number of job openings in the first quarter of 2025. Employers in this industry have also more commonly reported recruitment challenges over the past year.

Labour immigration – a big city phenomenon

Recruiting international talent from countries outside the EU/EES seems to be a big city phenomenon.

- The three largest regional labour markets, Stockholm-Solna, Gothenburg and Malmö-Lund, employed 8 out of 10 labour immigrants from countries outside of EU/EES. And most of them worked at company local units, with highly qualified staff, as stated by Freja Sahrblom, economist at SCB.

3 out of 4 businesses have international connections

Businesses with international connections were more likely to engage in international recruitment. Three out of four companies that had hired labour immigrants had such connections, either through the operative manager or board members of foreign origin. This trend was particularly evident among smaller businesses, where labour immigrants were clearly overrepresented when the operative manager was born abroad.

Labour immigrants were also overrepresented at foreign-owned companies, such as international schools with the majority of their shareholders’ equity based abroad.

Earlier experiences – new possibilities

The statistics show that prior experience with international recruitment seem to be positively connected to having a larger share of employed labour from abroad. In other words, companies that had previously recruited internationally were more inclined to do so again.

- This may indicate that companies develop an internal administration for international recruitment, reducing the cost of hiring labour from abroad over time, said Evelina Sundin, economist at SCB.

Swedish employers recruiting from outside the EU (pdf)