We have too many suppliers with poor results and we are now addressing this, says the Swedish Employment Agency's procurement director Martin Kruse.
Private companies, so-called matching companies or job mediators, handle much of the Swedish Employment Agency's support to the unemployed nowadays. In total, it concerns 45,000-50,000 unemployed individuals who are to receive help through the matching program Rusta och matcha.
2,300 job seekers
But the quality of these performers, the companies that are supposed to help the unemployed, is a bit of a mixed bag. The Swedish Employment Agency continuously monitors them and now a prognosis indicates that around a hundred contracts and nearly as many companies (a company can have multiple contracts) will be terminated this spring, according to the new rules set up by the authority.
About 2,300 unemployed individuals have used the services of these non-performing companies, where in some cases as few as two percent, two out of a hundred, have received help to find a job or education.
One could therefore say that these unemployed individuals' time has been wasted, even though it is difficult to know what would have happened to them otherwise.
"Obviously incompetent"
The unemployed person, however, chooses themselves which private job mediator they want to use, points out Martin Kruse.
But we do not want there to be obviously incompetent suppliers in the system and that is what we are addressing now, he says.
The figures on exactly how many contracts have been terminated are still preliminary, but it is clear that it concerns around a hundred, according to Martin Kruse.
He does, however, want to point out that many suppliers are skilled and achieve good results, and that the system overall works fairly well.
The same but more expensive
A study published by Ifau (Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation) before Christmas showed that the private job mediators achieve roughly the same results as the Swedish Employment Agency itself.
It is roughly the same results as we ourselves have, but they are more expensive to use, says Martin Kruse.
No direct regional differences among the mediators that have not performed, have been observed by the Swedish Employment Agency. Generally, there are more in metropolitan areas, almost an over-establishment, according to Kruse, while it can be more sparse in smaller towns.
In total, there are around 250 private suppliers in the service Rusta och matcha, with a thousand contracts throughout the country.
