Cultural workers are denied education at the Swedish Public Employment Service during the pandemic

These are so-called top educations.

Arbetsförmedlingen Kultur can be courses in image editing or sound technology, courses that will provide new and in-demand skills to those who are unemployed.

The musician Göran Hallmarken had to take a course at the beginning of the year, but when he was about to start course two in video editing, something had happened. 

- At the information meeting, they said that entrepreneurs can no longer be assigned courses like this.

I was frustrated.

It felt counterproductive.

Musicians and other cultural workers do not have much to do right now.

Then I think that those who have an interest and want to expand should be allowed to do so, says Göran Hallmarken.

For him, the changed conditions had consequences.

- The video editing course had meant a lot.

I had an internship at a social media company so I felt it would have been a step in the right direction on a new path, he says. 

95 percent are denied education 

Göran Hallmarken is not alone.

In 2021, 95 percent of all those who applied to Arbetsförmedlingen Kultur's educations were denied on the grounds that the applicant has an F-tax certificate.

This is about 70 people according to figures from the Swedish Public Employment Service. 

At the same time, it has always been difficult for cultural workers with F-tax to be allowed to attend training at the Swedish Public Employment Service, which has as its basic principle that those who have companies are not counted as jobseekers.

The cultural workers' interest organization, KLYS, believes, however, that the authority has previously applied the rules in a much more generous way for cultural workers - but that this was tightened during the year.

- We are critical of this development and ask ourselves why it happens in the middle of a pandemic when the need for education is greater than ever, especially for self-employed people in the field of culture and media.

One should also not forget that culture creators often do not choose to become entrepreneurs voluntarily, says Ulrica Källén, business manager at KLYS.

Stricter directives during the pandemic

According to Arbetsförmedlingen Kultur's unit manager Kevni Zulal, the tightening is due to the fact that the authority produced a new directive for how the rules should be interpreted in November last year.

It was then clarified that entrepreneurs should not be counted as unemployed, which affects cultural workers who have previously received individual assessments based on their specific work situation. 

- It meant a stricter interpretation for us.

We applied it and refused if you had F-tax, says Kevni Zulal. 

He thinks that the new directives have gone wrong and the cultural unit is now going back to the previous application of the regulations.

- We will do as we have done before and make a labor market assessment based on the individual's situation. If you have F-tax, you can still be unemployed and have not had an assignment for a long time. The company concept is broader today when people need F-tax to be able to take on an assignment, in the cultural sector many jobs work that way, says Kevni Zulal.