Number of unemployed graduates rise in Sweden as companies want blue-collar workers

"We need to adapt courses to the needs of the labour market," Mia Bernhardsen from the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise told the TT newswire.

One in four attempts to recruit is unsuccessful, according to a survey by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise sent to 5,000 companies. Trade workers were the most difficult to find.

"There is a serious lack of sheet metal workers, for example," she added.

In Stockholm almost half of those registered as unemployed have post-secondary education, partly due to a number of large layoffs over the past six months.

"A big layoff from Scania in Södertälje, 750 people, all of them white-collar workers, many well-educated. 2,000 at Volvo in Gothenburg. All engineers," business policy expert Jonas Jegers, from employer organisation Almega, told TT.