This is what's happening in Sweden — fact
- Sweden is not as dangerous as recent comment by US President Trump suggest
- Refugee inflow in 2016 has been low, contrary to what Fox News claims
- Integrating migrants is a challenge and does put pressure on the labour market
- Sweden's economy is in a sound position, recent survey's by IMF and OECD show
- Challenges are debt, equality and migrants

He referred to a Fox News (owned by Rupert Murdoch's listed 21st Century Fox) clip about a film titled “Stockholm Syndrome” and its director Ami Horowitz.
Two policemen interviewed in the film have accused Horowitz of having spliced in different questions to the ones they were asked (you can read their response in the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter). One only has to look into Swedish crime and migration statistics to see Horowitz has taken poetic licence with the facts used in his film.

Digging deeper, one sees that the two bodies share the same core concerns. Both mention the recent rapid rise in house prices and the large, growing body of private debt stemming from it.

“Sweden’s robust growth is reducing unemployment and raising resource utilization,” reads the IMF report. Regarding asylum seekers, it finds “[m]igration inflows have subsided after last year’s historic surge, but there are significant hurdles to integrating the large stock of asylum seekers.”

“Employment has increased more rapidly than in most OECD countries over recent years. The unemployment rate has receded and is now around 7%," it states.
However, there are certain groups of people that have a harder time finding a job than others: “Indeed, despite strong output growth, unemployment is increasing among some vulnerable groups, in particular immigrants and the low-skilled.”
In particular, the number of non-European born migrants finding themselves unemployed is on the rise. Generally, immigrants’ employment levels increases in line with their level of education and length of stay.
“The large share of refugees among immigrants has historically resulted in extremely low employment rates even though the employment rate of refugees is somewhat higher than the EU average,” says the OECD

"Migration has also contributed to a younger population directly, as many migrants are in the age-group 20-35, and indirectly through childbirth. Without migration, older people would represent a much greater share of the population and the youth a much smaller share.”

“Immigrants will make a substantial contribution to future output growth, provided efficient integration allows them to develop their skills and find matching jobs,” says the OECD.



The number of foreign-born women working is very low, highlighting the need for a more active labour market policy targeted at them “to prevent them from drifting away from the labour market.”
Swedish women also account for 75% of all parental leave, which affects their career prospects, according to OECD. It recommends "[encouraging] parents to split parental leave more equally by continuing to increase the share reserved for each parent “


