Swedish news, week 46 in 2025
Immigration news
Next week a decision will be made about tightening up the rules for SFI (svenska för invandrare, the free Swedish courses given to immigrants by municipalities). The key changes are: cap the participation in SFI by three years from admission (with possible extensions), require municipalities to create action plans to reach eligible people, allow to enroll in SFI in a different municipality (not the one the immigrant lives in) for legit personal reasons, mandate a knowledge assessment right after admission (unless it's obviously not needed) to shape the individual study plan, and make sure every study plan notes down the first admission date.
Chances are that the proposal will be approved and come into effect on the 1st of January 2026.
Meanwhile, Migrationsverket is busy preparing for scams; they are anticipating to get significant enough interest from scammers as the government is raising the amount of money paid to immigrants leaving Sweden from 10k SEK to 350k starting January 2026. Migrationsverket is now investing resources into the new procedures. They'll need to be able to reclaim the money if the people who got it don't leave Sweden within a year or come back at some point in the future.
Sveriges Radio
Consumer news
Starting in 2026, residents of the EU will have to pay customs duty on the things they ordered from non-EU countries even if their value is under €150. The Swedish media reported on this with a focus on Temu, Shein, and generally “cheap goods from China”, but of course there are many more countries other than China outside of the EU.
SVT Nyheter
A new powerline came online on the 12th of November, connecting Northern Sweden with Finland. It's expected that this will increase electricity prices in the north and lower them in the south (Stockholm included).
Sveriges Radio
Reports and data
Riksrevisionen, the Swedish National Audit Office, has published a report about education in Swedish schools with regards to how grounded it is in science and proven experience. TL;DR: Riksrevisionen was not thrilled by the effectiveness of the efforts to ensure the entire groundedness-in-science thing.
They write that the government provides ineffective steering, which leaves school authorities like Skolverket and SPSM without clear direction or coordination, which in turn makes support for teachers too fragmented (they don't know where to go to get practical information based on research). The processes for building knowledge bases often lack systematic or transparent methods. Reports from Skolforskningsinstitutet are too widely open for creative interpretation. Skolverket doesn't have the expertise to find and summarize research. Proven experience from teachers is supposed to be collected and documented (legally), but it's not. Quality checks by Skolinspektionen rely more on policy docs than solid research or actual results of the students. Teachers struggle big time to access and judge research when they're overworked (which is always). And tight deadlines from the government either put off researchers entirely or don't give those who accept an opportunity to do the work properly. All in all, quite some space for improvement.
SCB (Statistics Sweden, a government agency) reports that unemployment is still high according to October numbers, at 9%. Both the number and the share of unemployed people increased (seasonally adjusted and smoothed). Not seasonally adjusted though the number of young people in the labour force increased by 54000.
And just so you know, the cereal harvest this year totally slaps in Sweden: it's estimated at 6.3 million tonnes, which is the largest one since 1984. The three most common cereal crops grown in Sweden are winter wheat, spring barley and oats.
At the fika, you might hear about...
Ostkaka day! Ostkaka can be literally translated as cheesecake, but they have very little in common. Ostkaka's outside is soft, it's enjoyed lukewarm, and is made primarily of milk, cream, flour, and rennet (or cottage cheese to make it easier). For the Småland style, you add almonds, and this works especially well when the ostkaka is served with cherry jam. 14th of November is ostkaka's day. There is of course a yearly Swedish ostkaka championship and an association called “Ostkaka's friends” that you can join.
