Regional talent attraction initiatives grow while national politicians are still asleep

Last week the final report of the governmental investigation of work immigration was handed over to the Swedish government and Morgan Johansson, Minister for Justice and Migration. The mission was both to look into how Sweden can prevent the illegal activities that exist around working permits as well as suggest an improved collaboration between authorities and marketing efforts to attract talents to Sweden. Out of the 370 pages of the investigation, a mere 15 were spent on the latter two. The minister also failed to raise the positive and absolutely necessary role that international talent plays for the development of our employers and society as a whole. On the positive side, the work we are driving together with Teknikföretagen, within the national collaboration programme which gathers knowledge and needs from both regions and employers around Sweden, is pointed out by the investigation as the key study for suggesting a national platform for talent attraction and retention. In recent years we have seen a rise in regional initiatives for talent attraction as a response to the increasing need of competence. Now it’s time for our national politicians to wake up.

Move to Gothenburg, backed by companies, universities, cities and region, will continue to lead the way for the national development as well as driving forward our efforts to attract and retain international talent to our region. During 2020-2021 we have reached over 9 million talents around the world with our digital campaigns and have over 125,000 unique visitors on www.movetogothenburg.com each year. We have recently launched a talent pool where we now gather people that are interested in pursuing their career in our region and will match them with open positions. The International House Gothenburg is not only inaugurated and digitally opened but also welcomes visitors IRL.

Our region is in a very positive phase of development but it also faces a huge challenge (like the rest of the world) with the increasing lack of talent. We are now looking for more employers to join Move to Gothenburg, make use of all the tools and activities we provide and reap the benefits of our attraction work. So if you are looking for talent, or know someone who is, get in touch with us.

Niklas Delersjö
Head of Move to Gothenburg