(MENAFN- AFP) Record immigration in Sweden fuelled by soaring asylum claims is likely to push up unemployment in the medium term, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday.
"Rising migration inflows pose upside risks to unemployment for some years," an IMF report said.
Based on past experience on the pace of integration "the unemployment rate could rise to about 8.5 percent by 2020, and remain elevated for some years before declining".
The IMF noted unemployment was already disproportionately high among foreign-born workers at 16 percent -- more than double the overall current rate of 7.2 percent in a country which the IMF noted "receives more asylum seekers relative to its population than any other EU country".
The IMF is concerned at the time it takes migrants to assimilate. It calculates that after five years in the country only 48 percent would likely have a job and only 60 percent after 10 years.
"Among the stock of migrants, the share of low-educated increased to about 28 percent in 2014, from 17 percent in 2005.
"Migration is critical for maintaining growth in the working age population which, without migration, would shrink by a cumulative 3 percent by 2030 and 12 percent by 2060, according to Eurostat forecasts."
In a country with an ageing population, "further efforts to expedite the residency permit, educational assessment, and skill validation processes, are needed in view of rising numbers," said the IMF.
The IMF called for looser laws concerning the hiring of less-qualified workers to offset the barrier into the labour market posed by high entry-level wages in the Scandinavian country.
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