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Comment by Dolimiter | Hacker News Reader

Meanwhile, in the real world...

Don't come to Sweden without a job. Even then, Sweden is one of the most difficult countries in Europe to migrate to. Society is extremely conservative, and social opportunities to "get to know" Swedes are limited.

Without a solid job offer, you are in trouble. Sweden is having a job crisis at the moment, and only Swedes are being hired. Are you a working professional with a solid CV? No-one cares, there are no jobs for you. Have 10 years experience in a sector? Sorry, you need a Swedish qualification for that job.

Please note that I am employed, integrated, and super happy here. But I have met 100s of expats whose dreams have been crushed by the Swedish system and by the limited social opportunities.

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I'm quite tired of hearing people saying Swedish people are "cold." There are plenty of opportunities to get to know us if you put in the effort. Emigrating is always tough.

If you come from the US, you might find that we don't small talk as much. Cashiers, officials, salespeople and the like will engage with you in a completely different way in Sweden, which might come as a bit of a cultural shock when you come to here. As a social introvert, I kind of like it. I also like the US way. Potato potahto.

Being Swedish, I can't really comment on the jobs part.

I have Swedish friends, took a few years.

Almost every expat I meet has none. There is a wall there. It is unlike any other country. Sorry.

Actually, I heard that pretty much about every countries and experienced it myself (including in the US where people are supposed to be warm and welcoming) so I'm not sure Sweden is so different. Expats always have a hard time making local friends. The reason is that people have already their friends and routine, plus the language and cultural difference. Even in our own country, I think most of us don't make new friends every day (especially when getting older).

This is pretty common for all nordic countries. It's really tough getting to know people, even if you're native. I recently moved from a small town to the capitol, and struggled to meet new people.

I met a lot of people, but all of them were expats, in the same boat as me. After a few years I now have a few local Norwegian friends, but nothing like where I grew up. That said - when you get "accepted" into a group, they'll treat you really nice, and introduce you to a lot of people.

Scandinavians, and especially Norwegians are really reserved to strangers. You'll rarely be talked to in public by a stranger or something like that. It's just a cultural thing.

> I met a lot of people, but all of them were expats

I actually really like this about Copenhagen. You can meet a ton of interesting people, from all over. It's often easier to meet them than in their home countries, too, because you have this being-foreign thing in common. I've met a bunch of Spanish and German people in Copenhagen who I doubt I would've met in Spain and Germany, for example. Compared to other places where that might happen I think it's particularly ideal because there is so much use of English as a lingua-franca in public settings: many events, talks, meetups, university programs, cultural programs, etc. are in English, even when there are few to no native English speakers present, and the crowds they attract are very multicultural (lots of Danes, lots of foreigners from European countries, and a few non-European foreigners). So it's not only these little expat ghettoes like the "Italians in Germany club" that foreigners can go to. Rather, lots of public events are just routinely multinational. For example the monthly meetup of Copenhagen game developers is in English and typically has 10+ nationalities represented.

I assumed Stockholm would be similarly multicultural, but perhaps not?

I'm Swedish and I emigrated first from Sweden to France and then France to the US. I can't speak about going the other way, but having done this twice I think it takes a long time to make _real_ friends with locals almost anywhere if you are past college. Lots of interesting people are busy and have limited time.

If you're a kid or in a primarily social environment like college it's obviously a bit different. I moved both for college and my first job and made tons of friends right away, some of which I still stay in touch with.

Swedes are generally shyer to start talking to people we don't know than e.g. the Irish (or Danes). It takes longer to get friends. This is not only bad.

The Finns are, well, more Swedish than the Swedes. :-) While partying they are more open than Swedes, which makes partying a bit "too" fun, your mileage will vary.

The main problem with Stockholm is rather getting someplace to live. (Probably partly from lobbying and partly from political Moment-22 problems. The press seems to dependent on the political parties to analyze too much...)

(These are generalizations, but they are hard not to make after living in a few places and talking to a bunch of people that moved to Sweden.)

> I'm quite tired of hearing people saying Swedish people are "cold."

For what it's worth, I think Norwegians kind of are. I say that as a shy (which can come off as cold) Norwegian. I think that our social lives can become very compartmentalized, which I guess hurts outsiders like new countrymen disproportionately.

I work at a startup incubator were about 40 companies sit. A big chunk of them, us included, are looking for developers of all sorts. A lot companies are starting to look abroad because there simply aren't enough developers in Sweden. In short I do not agree with you.

If there is a reason to not move to Stockholm it's probably the housing market. Getting a first hand contract for a rental apartment will take you 7-12 years if you are not lucky. If you can afford the upfront 15% to buy an apartment housing is an easier problem to solve though

I've been to Stockholm a half a dozen times for work. Nearly every time I go, I manage to get into have some decent conversations with local Swedes. That certainly isn't the same as living there and getting to know them socially -- they seem more outgoing than Finns ;). When I lived in Helsinki, getting to know locals was also quite difficult -- even with normal activities outside work (martial arts classes, yoga, meditation, etc).

I think this is true for some sectors, but not the technology sector (which may be most relevant to HN readers).

If you are an engineer with average skills or above, finding a job won't be difficult.

In th tech sector, it doesn't really matter where you come from as long as you speak English. If English is your first language, even better.

The problem with getting a job in Sweden, which can be surprisingly hard is because a) worker protection laws are strong, bordering ridiculous. You can literally not fire the worst person on your team and hire someone else. b) salaries are comparably flat with high entry level salaries. Due to strong unions and high taxes on work, minimum wages are high ($10-20 depending on sector) and the minimum cost for hiring someone could be 50% higher including fees/taxes. This means there are no cheap employees. Together with generous benefit systems, the equilibrium unemployment is high, so there will always be a pool of people speaking Swedish that can take the job you are after. For unskilled immigrants without good English skills, this is a huge obstacle, there are thousands of people that literally cannot "produce" value that matches the cost of employing them. On the positive side, once you have a full time job, you can provide for a family, without working a second job or more than 40h/week.

For skilled and/or English speaking immigrants, coming here shouldn't be a problem.

> But I have met 100s of expats whose dreams have been crushed by the Swedish system

I am assuming that the expats had job offers first and then they moved to Sweden or do they just show up and start looking for jobs.

Some came on temporary contracts, and wanted to stay longer.

Some came for Swedish boyfriend/girlfriend.

Some came because they had a hopelessly naive idea about Sweden.

Some were PhD graduates from Swedish universities.

All had their dreams crushed.

Sweden: The Crusher of Dreams.

I don't know about Sweden specifically, but usually in Europe if you're under 30, you can just get a working visa, show up and look for work. If you're 30 or over, you need to have an offer of work before you can get a working visa.

Yes, you can show up, but you won't get a job unless you speak fluent Swedish. Maybe if you are a specialised engineer/IT. Even then, the Swedish applicant will be picked first.

Back when I was 31, I considered the antipodean tradition of getting a working visa somewhere in Western Europe and doing odd jobs ('bar work' is the traditional one, but I would have gone for other unskilled labour). A sort of working holiday. Then I found out about the 30-year-old cut-off...

In my experience this is not at all true. I would say that Swedes are known for their fluency in English and not knowing any Swedish, but speaking English, is not a problem in Sweden at all. I have people at my job that have lived here for 7-8 years and have still not learned to speak Swedish but manage to stay employed regardless.If you speak English and is good at what you do, you will find a job.

Interesting perspective. I kind of wondered why a quality-of-life video was being produced by the tourism board, not some other entity like a chamber of commerce or city government.

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