Swedish news, week 42 in 2025
Immigration news
The new laws for work permits (including the requirement for the salary to be at least 90% of Sweden's median) got a date when they will most likely go into effect: 1st of June 2026. The new laws will also allow people who have a residence permit to seek employment or investigate the conditions for conducting business activities after completing research/studies and want a residence permit for research/studies at the postgraduate level to apply for it from inside the country.
Other political news
The government is prolonging the subsidies for energy efficiency improvements in single-family homes. This is mostly relevant for those who have electricity or gas as the house's heating system. Switching it out for another system and improving the isolation can be subsidized by up to 60k SEK in total; 50% of the cost of the materials can be compensated.
Starting 1st of January 2026 it will only be possible to apply for a tax refund on commute costs if those costs were above 15000 SEK (current threshold is 11000).
For the next election, if you have a digital mailbox, your voting card will arive there instead of your regular postbox.
Reports and data
SCB (Statistics Sweden, a government agency) has published some stats on financial assistance, causes of death, and services for the elderly, splitting the numbers by gender. The most common recipient for financial assistance is single men without children (over 40% of all recipients), followed by single women without children (a bit less than 30%) and with children (15%). The least common recipient is single men with children (less than 3%).
Cardiovascular disease was the most common cause of death among both women and men in 2024, but the mortality rate was significantly higher for men. The mortality rate for cardiovascular disease also differs between various levels of education. Women and men with post-secondary education have the lowest mortality rates, while those with pre-secondary education have the highest.
As for deaths due to suicide or accidents with unclear intent, men without a high school education are the group that stands out. The death rate was more than twice as high compared to women without a high school education.
Among people aged 80+, approximately one in three women and one in four men received home care services in 2024. If we include special housing, a total of half of all women and one-third of men aged 80+ receive this service. Safety alarms were also more common among women in 2024: almost 40% of women aged 80+ had such a device, compared with less than 30% of men of the same age group.
At the fika, you might hear about...
Nationalprovet, “the national exam”, which is an optional way to increase your chances of getting into the university program you want, was held on Sunday the 19th. As is tradition, quizzes pop up in the media to let you test your maths/vocabulary/whatnot. For example this one from SVT lets you try 20 Swedish words.
SVT Nyheter