Got Work?

[Carolyn]

I'm just curious how many people here have a job in Sweden.

How hard was it for you to find a job?

Do you think more difficulty was caused by your lack of Swedish, the size of town or village you live in or your lack of marketable skills in Sweden?

Were you willing to take anything or are you a hold-out for the kind of job you had in the States?

How did you find your job?

For me, after passing SFI (and while going to school), I did flyttstädning (cleaning apartments for a move) and also did bi-weekly cleaning for a retired man. I didn't feel at all demeaned by this, because after all, it's honest labor, but would have preferred something regular.

I actually have had more trouble in my town because for every unskilled job available, there are literally hundreds of applicants (mostly immigrants), and I'm not a college-educated person anyway. My Swedish is actually pretty good, but I'd say I speak about like a ten-year-old would. I consider that good because I can understand what people say to me and can express myself pretty well.

I think my real problem has been two-fold, my age (53) and my lack of marketable skills in Sweden. Spending 20+ years in the American criminal justice system as a transcriptionist and paralegal didn't leave me with many marketable skills in Sweden, since the system is different for the most part. It's hard for even Swedes who are well educated in their 50s to find jobs, so I'm at the bottom of the heap here.

HOWEVER, I have made opportunities for myself. I'm currently in the States getting the computers set up with the firm of court reporters I worked for so that they can transmit work to me and I can be fully employed by them. They just signed a contract with their local county for a year's worth of tapes from the District Attorney's office in serious crime investigatoins, and since this is a pretty crime-intensive city, I'm set for at least a year.

I know several other people here have found jobs, whether dream jobs or not, and would love hearing about your employment attempts and experiences.

[crankody]

yes i have a job now. I got it direct after SFI, but was only placed there from unemployement because after SFI i still could not utter any swedish. So they put me at a nursing home because there were not so many old people who could speak english.
After my practical work i was offered a job and have been there 2 years in oct. i think i will stay there for a bit.
This last year i have gone back to school and studied the undernurse course and will be done in oct. as well. It has been a long hard haul as i work strickly nights and then had school in the day, but it is well worth it. Not only will i have more education here, but i have learned alot about the medical stuff and well just how the medical field works in sweden. i have also learned alot of swedish (ofcourse).
when my course is finished, im now sure what i am going to do. My teacher has offered to write me a letter of recommentation to enter nursing school, but im not sure if that is for me. Instead i think i will study for now the ¨special undernurse¨course in aphasia. i have done my major project arbete on that and it is so interesting i think i may like to continue to work in that for now as well as with dementia.

[Carolyn]

Wow, I really admire you for doing that. I know how difficult it can be, emotionally, working with older people with dementia. My father, during his last illness, became very child-like and used to talk to me as though I was my mother, and I know that on a 24-hour basis, it's extremely wearing. But also very satisfying to know that you can provide gentle and compassionate care to these people as well.

What did you do back in the States?

[crankody]

well im actually from canada, and i never really did work in the ¨medical ¨ field. i worked at an elementary school, in a library, different retail stores and once i did take care of neighbour that was dying with cancer. so i have done many things, but i must say that this job i have now has been the most rewarding. knowing i am taking care of not only my elders, but whether they have dementia or not, they have made me see life in a different prospective and that i should be happy with what i have today and not with what i could of had, blah blah blah.
and also, many people think this kind of work is the lowest of the lowest, but not i. i think that the family and the elders truly are thankful that their family members are in good care and knowing that i am the last person some of these people see before they die, well that gives me a whole new perspective on life.

[Leslie]

I check out the job ads everyday on AMS and in fact just now was joking with the hub that "I still haven't found a job that says unskilled, uneducated, english speaker needed." HA!!

After passing SFI and taking a term of SAS I am still not satsified with my speaking skills. I can understand pretty much everything that is spoken to me but have a hard time getting out what I want to say. I speak Swedish daily and some days I ace it. Other days I feel like it is my first day of SFI all over again. HA!

So I suppose I will continue to practice my Swedish, and continue my schooling. I am in Komvux this term again, and my goal is to work in the accounting field in Sweden. That is what I did in the States and what I did was more USA specific and not much of it would help me here. So I will probably have to have some formal schooling first.

I am hoping that my Swedish is good enough by January to start an accounting program through Komvux. We shall see though!

[crankody]

Good luck to you Leslie. I was looking in one of the math books at school and well i guess i would have to start back with class one with that. they do it a whole different way over here and well since i really hate math i dont know if i would just jump at a chance to take it. guess also, i am kinda scared to take it.

i cannot say my swedish is where it should be after 6 years but i do understand just about everything they do say to me and if i don't, then they reword it and i usually get it. if i cannot say what i want in swedish at work then i start rambling off in english and it usually throughs the co-workers all haywire, but again i am lucky because most of them do understand english.

like i say, after SFI i still couldn't speak swedish but also i was scared to, but after just 2 months at the nursing home, man what a difference. the old people (non-demented) really had patience with me and taught me many things. they are great. but they still tell me that if i dont' start drinking coffee, then i will never really be swedish, haha

[SlyandKami]

In Sweden it helps to know people to get a job. Like the saying goes it's not who you are but who you know that works here. Best proof of that was when we went to a school kalas, we were talking to one of Emma's friends mother. She was wondering what I was working with in Canada. When I told her I was working in the same business as her husband owns...well she ran off to tell him. The next thing I know is that he stars talking to me and offer's me a job. So I just need to finish my Svenska Andra Språk class to start working. As for learning swedish S.F.I. is good but you need to practice a lot out of class to realy learn swedish. I have the advantage of having 2 kids that only speak swedish at home. So I don't have a choice...I have to speak to them in swedish and believe me it helps because I did my S.F.I. course in 7 months without studying much for it. So kids are great teacher's .

[Sandy]

I worked as a computer technician in the States. Within the first month after I moved here, I was with my husband a Taco Buffet night with my husband's colleagues (teachers), and one of the teachers at the high school asked what I did. When I told him, his eyes lit up. They had just begun a samhålls linje with datainryktning at his school and he was the main computer teacher. He couldn't maintain all of the computers and the network, as well as teach computers and math. So, within 6 months I was working praktik there and studying Swedish in SFI. For the next 2 years, I worked off and on, both full-time and part-time in various computer related jobs at the schools in the kommun. After being out of work all last summer (2002), the principal at the high school called and begged me to come in and help them get their computers up and running. After I had been there for 30 days, he extended me another 2 months. When I was offered another job (permanent) in the same field, he offered me more money and said that he would make me permanent. He came through on that promise on March 1, 2003, almost exactly 3 years and 1 month after I arrived in Sweden.

[Carolyn]

No matter how one gets the job, meeting the right person, making their own opportunities, I think it should be encouraging to others here who all too often see the same old song and dance "you'll never get a good job in Sweden, you'll never use your studies, you're an immigrant, all you will get is offers to scrub toilets."

Hey, I did scrub toilets in Sweden temporarily and I have to admit, I got paid pretty well to do it as well. No, it wasn't my dream job by any means, but it was an honest job and paid money. And when I didn't find anything I was qualified for, I went out, looked around and made my own opportunities.

And for those who get discouraged by others screaming about the high rate of taxation if you're self-employed, even if I end up paying at a rate of 60%, which is a way high estimate by the way, I will still clear some pretty good money, certainly equivalent to what my husband was clearing in his old job, on which, we maintained our apartment, paid our bills, had extras like cable and broadband, a few trips to Stockholm, Finland, etc. and fed the two of us for the month, so I'm not about ready to complain about how unfair taxes and life are.

[crankody]

No i don't think i will complain about the taxes either. Having 3 kids to start with, wow! 3 dentist visits, one will have braces and i don't pay diddlysquat! One child had major testing done on the kidneys and every possible test done and i didn't pay a cent. The other had MRI's done, fitted for glasses and what did i pay for it all? not a bloody cent. not even for the glasses and he got to choose which frames and all.

yes taxes are high here but we have good end results for those of us with kids. and that i am thankful for.

and i have also had the ¨you are just an immigrant¨ speech also about me getting a job. But i am working now and not complaining. But I'm not going to settle at a job just because its a job. I made that clear to my dh as his family says i should be ¨thankful¨ that anybody would hire an immigrant. I worked hard for where i am now and shouldn't just have to settle. they wouldnt' settle, so why should i?` if it were 4-6 years back yes i would of settled i guess for that moment because we didnt' have a pot to piss it or a window to throw it out of, but now we do, sooooo... blah blah blah.

ps.. sandy, think you could just hop on plane and give me a crash course in computer?? haha.. i have to have my computer class finished in just 4 weeks and i have not started it. I have a mac and they have pc's at school in swedish and im like a deer caught in the headlights. haha

[SlyandKami]

When it comes to paying taxes if you are from Canada, you are used to paying them. Just in some ways you get a bit more in return for them in Sweden. The major difference is that you don't have to pay for hospital visits or that we have a provincial medication program.

As for getting a job because you are an immigrant I don't realy see a problem with that one unless you aren't white and have a stupid racist employer . But from what I have been told and seen so far in Sweden when you say you are from Canada or the U.S. people get so interested in you. I have seen some people get a lot friendlyer when they found out I was Canadian for some weird reason . You have to wonder why does that make me better now? People should just be more young kids who haven't been touched by racism...our 1 year old son at dagis hangs around with a kid from Iran and another from Tunisia. They are nice kids and he loves them just too proove how kids could teach some idiots on both sides that they can get along together.

[Sandy]

crankody said:

ps.. sandy, think you could just hop on plane and give me a crash course in computer?? haha.. i have to have my computer class finished in just 4 weeks and i have not started it. I have a mac and they have pc's at school in swedish and im like a deer caught in the headlights. haha

Where are you?? We could trade lessons! I'd like to learn a little about Macs...

[crankody]

i'm way down south of nowhere, Halland lans.

we talked to the computer teacher yesterday and he knows i can do the stuff in english as my whole computer is in english so he said come do the test and i would ¨probably¨get a ¨g¨ for coming and trying it in swedish and on a PC. i really have no clue about them and this new XP and for petes sake we have 2 pc's in the house and 2 macs, but i love my mac. guess one day i wil have to be brave and face the pc monster.
but anything you want to know about a mac, fire away and im sure we can help you.

[Natooke]

Since I live in a very small town ... I didn't have much of a choice other then the window factory ... which is shift work and I only wanted part time so that I could be at home after school ;D

I had taken my husband out for lunch at our local eatery(Wärdshus) ... they were looking for part time work Wednesdays & Fridays ;D BINGO I took it ... Now I'm working every day just at lunch time. It has been a bit of a struggle working with temp workers & teenagers but finally have a full time gal who I connect in many levels ;D My boss is the most kind of Ppl. on earth... She gives hugs & thanks you each & every day for being at work. She has gone as far as picked up my own kids & the the other gals child at school (she's a young Farmor & a Mormor) and brings them in and proceeds to feed them ;D I get girl talk (which I missed) a paycheck ... feeling of being trusted ... My opinion counts. I'm working between 18 to 20 hours a week it's not much but I'm a happy camper. ;D