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Swedish migration agency blame inefficiency on young workers

Xinhua, August 27, 2016 Adjust font size:

An internal report from the Swedish Migration Agency states that agency employees process just one asylum application per week on average, a result that the report describes as poor.

The authors of the report, which was seen by Swedish Television, compare today's situation with the early nineties when Sweden experienced an influx of refugees escaping the Balkan wars.

Then, three times as many asylum decisions were made. The report also states that the Finish migration authorities are more efficient than Sweden's.

According to the internal review, the agency's inefficiency can be partly explained by the fact that the Migration Agency has recruited a large number of new staff members, many of them born in the 1980s and, the report authors assert, the younger generation has a different work ethic than older employees.

The report refers to the new generation of employees as one raised by helicopter parents.

"In other words, we have employees who have gotten used to being driven here and there and getting everything they point at," the report states.

"It is time to invest in efficiency now. We have to do so when we have so many cases to process," said Erik Stenstrom, one of the auditors who co-authored the report.

However, he also stressed that the authors are not blaming young staff members for the situation but simply recounting what some bosses within the agency have said about them.

The report also asserts that some employees at the agency refuse to reject asylum seekers since "their empathy goes too far and they are overcome by agony over making decisions".

The number of asylum caseworkers at the Swedish Migration Agency has tripled since 2012 while asylum units have also lost many experienced staff members in recent years.

The report authors suggest several measures to double its efficiency compared to the rate achieved in 2015, for instance by ensuring case workers spend less time answering phone queries, by updating employee manuals and by creating new training programs. Endit