Thursday, 07 March 2019 08:25

Skills gap provides foreign-born engineers with route into Swedish labour market

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Sweden needs more engineers: over recent years, ÅF has worked actively to recruit newly immigrated and foreign-born engineers through standard recruitment channels as well as via the company’s own investment, New Immigrated Engineers.
Since 2016, 150 people have started work at ÅF within the framework of the initiative.

For the past three years, ÅF has offered hands-on coaching to foreign-born engineers and matched their skills with those sought by the company. Over the course of those three years, ÅF’s investment in New Immigrated Engineers has succeeded in attracting 150 new employees, almost half of them women.  

In 2018 alone, ÅF recruited 53 newly arrived engineers. Of these, 16 were women, equating to 30% of recruitments, which is in line with ÅF’s goal for the proportion of women in the workforce.   

2019 03 07 082312 ÅF and the industry in general sees a continued high demand for engineers and we will need to take advantage of all available competences if we are to meet future needs and the social challenges we are currently facing. The pace of change is high and our strategic investment in newly immigrated and foreign-born engineers is crucial if we are to continue to be a leader in sustainable solutions.
Jonas Gustavsson, President and CEO.

At the start of the programme, those admitted were primarily newly immigrated engineers. Today, recruitment has been widened to include foreign-born long-term residents of Sweden who had difficulty establishing themselves in the Swedish labour market, overseas students and those recruited directly from abroad. In addition to addressing the skills gap, developing ÅF as a business and reflecting the needs of ÅF’s clients are also vital aspects of the project.  

Since Amir Nazari took up the post of Diversity Coach in 2016, tasked with attracting and recruiting more engineers, the company’s recruitment of newly immigrated and foreign-born employees has gained momentum. In spring 2018, Sofia Klingberg joined as ÅF’s second Diversity Coach with responsibility for driving the project in the west and south of Sweden and together they will be developing and scaling up recruitment activities.

About ÅF Pöyry
ÅF Pöyry is a leading company within engineering, design and advisory services. We create sustainable solutions for the next generation through talented people and technology. We are more than 16,000 devoted experts within the fields of infrastructure, industry and energy operating across the globe to bring value to our customers and the society.
Making Future.

 

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