Quote:
Originally Posted by riseagainstrocks
To your first part, those numbers are a tad misleading:
https://www.economist.com/news/finan...ees-sweden-are
Doesn't mean the lower participation rate isn't a problem, but the context behind the numbers is faulty. The actual foreign-borne participation rate in the workforce is 63-65%, compared to 76-77% for native born Swedes. The phrasing of your statistic (and the parroting of the number on the Daily Caller and Brietbart) implies that immigrants/migrants/refugees/foreign-born residents participate at less than a 1% rate in the workforce, as a whole.
Things that aren't considered: 1. Not speaking the language. 2. Not reading the language 3. Likely having spent the past the past three months prior to arriving in Sweden running from some smugglers and to others. 4. Likely having spent the past three months prior to arriving in Sweden living in an active warzone. 5. Swedish cultural bias towards native born Swedes for open jobs (by the way, I'm not making a moral judgment here - even me, on my liberal "high horse" prefer the company of like-minded people who share my cultural and aesthetic values).
Point being, when you see a statistic that scream "foreigners are weird, feckless, and only harm their new communities", take a second and see if the context of that statistic is being manipulated. To judge the influx of a couple hundred thousand refugees, many fleeing from civil war and ethnic cleansing, as a failure after the first year or two is ahistorical. This is not to say that maybe, on balance, these new arrivals will be bad for Sweden in the long term. But that would buck a global trend of immigration being a net positive for the communities that embrace it.
To the second quoted paragraph, I fail to see how identifying them as Muslim affects your argument in any way. Unless you're saying that because they are Muslim they are incapable of being productive members of Swedish society? |
Actually, your statistic is more misleading. Mine just refers to the amount of people seeking asylum during a given year and how many got jobs after a certain period of time according to arbetsförmedlingen (that is Sweden's national work office). Yours groups all foregn workers together. That isn't the group I was referring to.
I do consider language. Hence, we give refugees free language lessons/free education. They can even go to University free if they wish (allthough free education is a given right for all). Is Swedish hard? Yes. But there are no requirements for them to pass the language classes and they can take the same class over and over again and still get the benifits.
What happens if they cannot speak the language and they need to go to the hospital/sign their kids up for school/driver's license etc... We provide translators.
In other words, we (Sweden) have created a society where you do no have to learn the language or anything about the culture to get money. Is this advantageous to someone who just wants the money? Of course!
Do we consider that people might be emotionally scarred from living in active warzones? Yes. I said already you can be declared too emotionally scarred to work. In Sweden we have "Sjukskriven" which means you can be declarred too emotionally sick/physically sick to work and just live off of welfare. It is an accepted part of our society although the amount has risen, as a whole, over the last few years.
Do I buck the amount of refugees that Sweden took in...because we took in the amount of refugees from places such as Syria that countries such as the US and England said no too? Yes. It was stupid. We are a much smaller county, population wise, than most. There were no long-term plans in place. And we are paying for it with a huge increase in people using welfare . That is why I think the benifits should be cut for new refugees. For a while, women who arrived with children were getting retroactive benifits for their children who were not even born in this country. Is that fair?
Do Swedes hire swedes over non-Swedes? Don't most (if not all) countries prefer natives for most jobs?
Perhaps the point about saying most were followers of Islam was a bit much.
I am just tired of this feeling that I am expected to welcome rather than newcomers should just be thankful.