TELL US: What are your top hacks for finding a job in Sweden?

Each country's job market poses its unique challenges and opportunities. We're asking for your best tips to help fellow foreigners navigate the job hunt in Sweden.

Published: 8 April 2024 13:04 CEST
Updated: 9 April 2024 07:02 CEST

TELL US: What are your top hacks for finding a job in Sweden?

Finding a job in Sweden can be stressful at times. Photo: Stina Stjernkvist/TT

Please share your thoughts in the survey below – we may publish your answers in a future article on The Local.

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Why is Pentecost not a public holiday in Sweden?

Whit Monday, also known as Pentecost Monday (or annandag pingst in Swedish), falls on the day after Pentecost Sunday, marking the seventh Sunday after Easter.

It is a time when Christians commemorate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Jesus, an event described in the Bible.

For a long time, it was a public holiday in Sweden, a country which is very secular today but where the old religious holidays still live on. In fact, up until 1772, the third and fourth day of Pentecost were also holidays.

In 2005, Whit Monday also got the boot, when it was replaced by National Day on June 6th. The Social Democrat prime minister at the time, Göran Persson, saw the opportunity to combine calls for National Day to get a higher status in Sweden with increasing work hours.

The inquiry into scrapping Whit Monday as a public holiday looked into May 1st, Ascension Day or Epiphany as alternative victims of the axe, but in the end made its decision after “all churches and faith associations in Sweden agree that Whit Monday is the least bad church holiday to remove”.

Because Whit Monday always falls on a Monday, whereas June 6th some years falls on a Saturday or Sunday, this means that Swedish workers don’t always get an extra day off for National Day.

This is still a source of bitterness for many Swedes.

And so it came to pass in those days, that apart from the occasional grumbling about Göran Persson, Whit Monday now passes by largely unnoticed to most people in Sweden. Unless they are active church-goers, or go to Norway or Denmark, where it’s still a public holiday.

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