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RESIDENCY PERMITS

Sweden launches pop-up passport control hubs in US and Canada

Sweden has announced the dates and locations for the pop-up passport control centres it is opening across North America next week to make it easier to apply for residence permits for work and studies.

Published: 29 June 2023 10:52 CEST
Sweden launches pop-up passport control hubs in US and Canada
Sweden's Migration Agency will set up mobile hubs in the US and Canada to check student and work permit applicants' passports. Photo: AP Photo/Eileen Putman

As The Local has previously reported, new rules for residence permits have required applicants since November to visit a Swedish embassy in person to verify their identity using their passport – even if they’re from a visa-exempt country, such as the US or Canada.

Many universities have raised concerns over the new rules, which mean that an American researcher on the west coast has to travel to Washington DC on the other side of the country to show their passport.

But next month the Swedish Migration Agency will set up temporary mobile units at various locations across the US and Canada where student and work permit applicants only can go to get their passports checked.

”We are making this effort in parallel with the evaluation of other possible solutions,” the Migration Agency’s head of foreign operations, Oskar Ekblad, said in a statement announcing the news. Such solutions could potentially include digital checks or using an independent service provider.

The Migration Agency said it had chosen the locations of the pop-up passport checks based on demand, with centres also situated in places where people would otherwise have the longest travelling distance to an embassy.

”We have chosen the US and Canada because these are places of vast distances and a large population of students who might benefit from this effort,” said Ekblad.

The pop-up passport checks will be open at the following times and locations.

CANADA

The Swedish Consulate in Vancouver: 2-5pm, July 3rd

University of British Columbia, Vancouver: 9am-noon and 1-4pm, July 4th

UNITED STATES

University of California Berkeley, San Francisco: 9am-noon and 1-4pm, July 5th, and 9am-noon, July 6th

University of California Los Angeles: 9am-noon and 1-4pm, July 7th

Rice University, Houston, Texas: 9am-noon and 1-4pm, July 10th, and 9am-noon, July 11th

DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois: 9am-noon and 1-4pm, July 12th

Honorary Consulate of Sweden, Chicago, Illinois: 9am-noon, July 13th

The pop-up passport checks are only available to those who live in the US or Canada, have applied for a student permit or work permit, and don’t need a visa to travel to Sweden.

If you need a residence permit card or visa in order to enter Sweden, or if you need to be interviewed (for example if you’re moving as a family member), you still need to visit the embassies in Washington DC or Ottawa.

No appointment is needed to visit the pop-up passport checks, except for applicants visiting the Honorary Consulate of Sweden in Chicago on July 13th, who need to schedule an appointment due to building security regulations.

You can find more information, including address details, about the pop-up checks on the websites of the Swedish embassies in the US and Canada.

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For members

NORTHVOLT

Northvolt warns work permit salary threshold could jeopardise Sweden’s green transition

Sweden’s minimum salary threshold for work permits has increased by almost 120 percent in less than a year, and there are plans to increase it again to the median salary next summer. Battery manufacturers Northvolt warns that this could stop the company from hiring and retaining key workers.

Published: 3 July 2024 12:32 CEST
Northvolt warns work permit salary threshold could jeopardise Sweden's green transition

“Northvolt’s extensive labour requirements in northern Sweden cannot currently be met by permanently established workers in Sweden or within the EU,” the company wrote in a response to the government’s proposal to raise the salary threshold to the median salary, currently 35,600 kronor.

“This applies in particular to machine operators and technicians, whose minimum wages under collective bargaining agreements are lower than the median wage, and therefore are particularly vulnerable in this context.”

The EU has highlighted qualified machine operators and technicians as professions which are particularly hard to source within the bloc, meaning companies often have no choice but to source these workers from non-EU countries.

Northvolt has the added complication of being located in northern Sweden, an area which in general often struggles to find key workers in a number of industries, and the company isn’t convinced that enough is being done to fix this.

“Northvolt does not believe that the government and the Public Employment Service’s measures to promote geographic mobility in the Swedish labour market is going to be able to cover the company’s need for labour,” it wrote, while adding that it believes the proposed hike to the work permit salary threshold could have “significant consequences” for its facility in Skellefteå.

“Aside from the direct effects on the company, Northvolt sees a risk that staffing in healthcare, services and infrastructure in northern Sweden could be negatively affected by the salary threshold, which would indirectly affect Northvolt’s expansion.”

In addition to this, the company deems the proposed exemptions to the salary threshold – these would be put forward by the Migration Agency and the Public Employment Service based on professions where there’s a labour shortage – to be insufficient and unpredictable.

Northvolt’s criticism highlighted the fact that the exemptions are based on a model which is currently under development and which may not be ready by the time the law is due to come into force, as well as the fact that professions with a labour shortage will be defined using a so-called SSYK code.

Some key roles for Northvolt to do with battery production do not have one of these codes, as they are relatively new roles.

“It remains to be seen how the proposed model would effectively be able to identify professions with a labour shortage when they don’t have an SSYK code,” the company wrote, adding that this all makes it harder for the company to plan, for example, will an employee who is granted a work permit once be eligible for renewal two years later?

“The employee in that situation would risk being deported from Sweden. If that were to happen, it would be deeply unfair for the employee who has contributed to supporting Swedish society in a role where there is a shortage, and a catastrophe for the employer who has invested years of education and talent in the employee.”

“This lack of predictability can be compared to earlier notorious so-called kompetensutvisningar (talent deportations), and will further complicate the recruitment or necessary talent,” it wrote.

TALENT DEPORTATIONS:

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