Ask HN: Working in Sweden?

No, they're completely sweeping them under the rug and are determined to worsen them even more by importing as many economical "refugees" as possible. The country is doomed.

"Do note that tax levels are rather high once you reach higher levels of income (50%-55% marginal tax rate)"

Also note that this is a potentially good time of year for someone to start working in Sweden. Since the tax rate is progressive and calculated on a yearly basis if you start working mid year you will this year pay the same rate as someone earning half your salary. At least in theory.

> You won't make any friends among the natives. We'll have a beer with you after work but don't expect anything serious. None of my friends have foreign friends. Can't really say why this happens though. We are pretty reserved.

I think I want to chime in here that this makes it sound like some form of xenophobia. I suppose this -is- prelevant in Sweden (especially for the last few years with the rise of Sverigedemokraterna), but I would also assume that in this scenario, it has more to do with the fact that working people are in their mid 20s and up and their social circles are quite knit together already. Combining this with the reserved nature of Swedes (as you say) is not the best combination for getting "new friends" more than (as you say, again) beers after work.

For some perspective though, I am Swedish but I work abroad. Even when there have been other Swedes working here, the same would apply to them. I'll have a beer with them, but other than that, unless something clicks, it is merely a colleague.

Why is this downvoted?

There is a predicted shortage of up to 1,000,000 residences In a market of 4,500,000 or so, and a population of 10 million, recent refugees not included (yet).

The last 'fix' to the problem in 1960-1970 was building brutalist suburbs that turned into high-crime areas, and eventually into 'no-go' zones, fuelled by the virtually unlimited immigration. This is now not limited to the (three) larger cities as there are about 150 areas around the country where gang (mostly immigrant or descendant) criminality is a significant problem.

In some areas, like Södertälje and Alby- clan structures are starting to corrupt parts of the local government, giving political power to family heads while welfare systems are abused with the help of relatives working in the social services.

Grenades are thrown into apartments in gang wars, recently killing an 8 year old boy visiting from UK, and just yesterday one grenade exploded on someone's balcony just because he happened to live next to a gang member.

Meanwhile, nicer neighbourhoods have some of the highest prices in the world, except Monaco and other outliers. 1000000 USD is not much for a house in my area which is close to Stockholm but not special in any way and is within shooting range from one of those no-go zones.

This is fuelled by unlimited length mortgages with the extreme rate of around 1-2%.

The previously strong industrial economy is crumbling slowly.The largest companies listed at the Stockholm stock exchange are banks, not industrial export as for 15 years ago.

High tech jobs, like software development, are moved to neighbour countries like Estonua or Lithuania were the salary is 50%. Lower skilled jobs like call centres and backoffice jobs are going there too at a higher rate.

Is the government concerned? There are plans for an extra employment tax on banks, which will only make offshoring more attractive.

The unemployment rate is going down right now, but because there are 100,000 less young adults entering the job market than 5 years ago, unfortunately not because there are more jobs.

Meanwhile, the majority of the 1,000,000 immigrants (from the last few years) that could fill the vacancies will never find a job when they eventually enter the job market as many have almost no education, and are not skilled nearly enough for one of the most demanding job market in the world.

There are no plans whatsoever to address any of these problems as far as i can tell, except the emergency stop in the refugee policy, much too late.

Even discussing a few of them is considered racist, and instead both the government and media is doing a fair deal of spinning, like highlighting the 100 or so doctors and dentists from Syria that might get a certification within 10 years, which is as close to irrelevant to the problems as anything can be.

The central bank is balancing and trying to help the exports and the slow industry without blowing up the house market even more. The head of the central bank, Ingves, looks more and more like an angry gnome trying to highligh the risks, but no one listens.

So the downvoter is either a Swedish hipster in denial, or a troll.

Thanks. So this "housing issue" is really just about central Stockholm then is that correct? 15 to 30 is not much of burden in terms of commuting times.