Unemployment in Sweden is approaching half a million people. At the same time, there are jobs that are vacant - vacant for those who have a driver's license.
In June, there were almost 8,000 vacancies to apply for among the top 20 most sought-after occupations at the job bank. Jobs that require or are facilitated by a driver's license, according to the Swedish Public Employment Service.
- It is about jobs, for example in the home care service, personal assistants, company salesmen and different types of drivers. So it can be a good opportunity to take the opportunity to get a driver's license if you do not have it, says Annika Sundén who is head of analysis at the Swedish Public Employment Service
But at the same time, the number of approved applications for driving license loans for the unemployed at the Central Student Aid Board, CSN, has fallen during the corona spring, the months of March to June, by more than 30 percent compared with last year.
CSN has not made any analysis of why interest has fallen on the loan.
And the number of new students at the country's traffic schools plummeted on a majority of the Traffic Schools in May this year, according to a survey among members of the Swedish Transport Educators' Association. Nearly 60 percent of the traffic schools had lost 20 percent or more of new students.
In addition to what corona has done with health and personal finance, the queues to take the theory test have grown. Also because of the corona as fewer people are allowed into the writing rooms for security reasons.
- It has become a "cake on cake effect" because the rules were changed on the first of March, which means that you must have an approved theory test before taking a driving test, says traffic instructor Jonas Perland, at Jarla Traffic School.
On average, the waiting time for driving license tests is now two months longer than normal in the country during the corona pandemic, according to the Swedish Transport Administration.