1993 och 1994 I continued at SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) classes. After the Christmas and New Years break and during the summers we were expected to find a job doing what is called practical experience. Each time lasted about 2 months if I remember correctly.
I found a job at an Electrical firm in our small town. We were expected to work for free (but were paid an allowance by the government). I also found that in Sweden there is never anyone hiring unless of coarse they can get someone to work for free through one of Sweden's many unemployment programs.
I also found it strange that the job counselor had told me that there were not any jobs for electricians in Sweden and that there would not be any positions for electricians for probably the next ten years due to the fact that they had over built. But here I was working as an electrician. Not only that but they had plenty of work, at my firm anyway.
I was later to learn that I had arrived in Sweden during the Swedish banking crisis.
Around 1985 a newly deregulated credit market had stimulated a competitive process between financial institutions where expansion was given priority. Combined with an expansive macro policy, this contributed to an asset price boom. The subsequent crisis resulted from a highly leveraged private sector being simultaneously hit by three major exogenous events: a shift in monetary policy with an increase in pre-tax interest rates, a tax reform that increased after tax interest rates, and the ERM crisis. Combined with over investment in commercial property, high real interest rates contributed to breaking the boom in real estate prices and triggering a downward price spiral resulting in bankruptcies and massive credit losses.
After working as an electrician for the firm on two separate occasions I was surprised to be offered a job. The only problem was the company had to clear me with the Electricians Union. So about a week after being offered the job a Union representative arrived at the company and informed both the company and then me that I would not be able be hired until I was a certified electrician and that the first step in becoming certified was doing a two year coarse in Electrical theory. Then and only then would I be able to work as a trainee for two more years before I would be able to work as a full fledged electrician.
This was way too much for me to handle. I had been told by my work counselor that there were no jobs available for electricians and that there would not be any for the next 10 years- I had spent almost 18 months in a Swedish language class where they had given me job training in CNC machining (CNC Machining is a process used in the manufacturing sector that involves the use of computers to control machine tools) which I hated. And now that I had on my own basically found a place that wanted to hire me as an electrician I had been told I would have to go to school for two more years to be able to start as a trainee. I had already gotten an AA from Los Angeles Trade Tech and worked as an Electrician for several years but this was not worth the paper my AA was printed on in Sweden.
I was so disappointed and angry that all I wanted to do was go back to the US then and there. At least in the US they gave you a chance to see what you could do and where, on the west coast anyway, there were not Union people dictating who was or was not qualified to work.
When I arrived home that day I told my wife that we were leaving Sweden. This of coarse did not go over well with her. We been in Sweden less that two years and I really had not tried to get a job other that the practical work I had done for the firm that had offered me a job she had pointed out. She was right of coarse but I was so angry that it took me a while to realize it. She had to put up with several days of me complaining and bitching about everything a disliked about Sweden until I finally got over it and decide to seriously start looking for a job.
A big part of me not looking for work earlier was that the small town we lived in was not would be concidered a hot bed of employment and either was the whole of Sweden for that matter. I did realize that the only way to get a job was to start looking because no one was going to just offer me a job out of no where.
At the library and checked out a book that listed all the medium to large sized companies in Sweden. I ended up sending my CV to over 70 different companies through out Sweden. Of those 70 companies I received 2 replies. One explaining that they had looked at my CV and had considered my application but had decided to hire someone else. The other, from L.M. Ericsson, a mobile telephone company with a branch located in Stockholm, and they wanted to interview with me!
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