As population diversifies, Swedish firms start to as well

With 17 percent of the country's 9.1 million residents now classified as having an immigrant background, Sweden has become one Europe's most diverse societies. Last year, a record 96,800 people immigrated to Sweden, just over half of whom came from outside Europe.

Sweden prides itself of its relatively generous immigration laws. Last year, 30,000 asylum seekers who were in limbo while appealing their deportation order – including 8,000 people in hiding – were given blanket amnesty.

But such benevolent government policies sometimes collide with a society that is still unwilling – or at least unprepared — to accommodate the newcomers, says Lena Nekby, an economist and immigration expert at Stockholm University.

She offers a laundry list of the obstacles that immigrants face in the Swedish job market.

Poorly trained job counselors

In addition to facing employment discrimination, newcomers are often placed in communities where there is housing but few jobs. Poorly trained employment counselors, weak networks, and a lengthy immigration process that can last several years also delay immigrants' entry into the job market, explains Ms. Nekby.

"We have a labor market that lacks knowledge about the skills and credentials immigrants bring," she says. "Many employers also feel uncertain about how these people will fit in socially."

That helps explain why 14 percent of immigrant youths and nearly 10 percent of immigrants overall in Sweden's booming economy remain unemployed, including many with university degrees. Only 4 percent of native Swedes were officially without work in March.

"We are wasting a tremendous amount of competence this way, and a lot has to do with the fact that Swedes still aren't used to interacting with people from other cultures," says Gabriella Nilsson Fägerlind, founder of a Swedish diversity-consulting firm. "There is still the sense that you 'don't know what you get' when you hire an Iraqi man, even if he has a Swedish technical degree."

One of the first major corporations to embrace the idea that a more diverse workforce could enable the business to tap into an increasingly diverse population's buying power is the Sweden-based furniture giant IKEA.

At its Kungens Kurva store south of Stockholm, nearly 25 percent of the workforce has an immigrant background. Employees hail from 60 countries and speak more than 40 languages, reflecting the community in which the store is located.

The global furniture empire has become a poster child of sorts for other Swedish companies that are now starting to dabble in diversity terminology.

"What we're after is knowledge about our customers and the languages they speak," said Henrik Dider, the IKEA store's human-resource manager. "And the more different our employees are, the more open they are to the needs of our customers."

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