The employment services reform has been postponed until 2022 and it is now only in two years that the private actors will completely take over the task of helping job seekers to a job. Today, they account for about 60 percent of efforts.

- What the Employment Service does today will be done by others in the future and most of it will be procured, says Sofie Carlsson, head of the Employment Service in Skåne.

Big players hit

On the other hand, several of the private players are critical of how the cut of the authority has been handled so far. In Skåne, the companies have lost about 2,000 of their customers in just two years.

"We saw that the largest players were roughly halving the number of applicants and we too were affected," says Menaida Hasanovic, chief operating officer of private operator EnRival.

The explanation is that the authority has cut staff over the past year. Fewer administrators mean fewer decisions about sending job seekers to private companies.

- The staff resources that have previously assessed and decided on various efforts for our job seekers have become less. This means that our decision-making ability is greatly affected and this simply results in fewer decisions, ”says Sofie Carlsson.

Promises an improvement

SVT News Skåne has been in contact with twelve private players in Skåne. Eight of them say they have been hit hard after receiving significantly fewer job seekers from the Employment Service.

The authority now promises an improvement with more procured services.

- One of the most important priorities is to direct our job seekers to our private players. The number of instructions to private players has increased since a month ago, but getting back to the levels we previously had can be difficult, says Sofie Carlsson.

The Employment Service's purchase of services from private actors throughout the country has decreased from SEK 4.2 billion in 2018 to SEK 2.5 billion this year.

Hear one of the private players and the head of the Employment Service tell in the above text.