Unemployment services for newly arrived migrants in Sweden: The privatization and rebureaucratization of the introduction programme

A recent policy reform in Sweden reorganized the management of newly arrived migrants' entrance into the labour market, which resulted in the Swedish Public Employment Service being given coordinating responsibility and introducing private service providers. Building on qualitative interviews with public employment officers and private actors, this study focuses on how the political contradictions in the new 2-year introduction programme are managed at the organizational level. In the article, it is argued that although both public employment officers and private actors experience difficulty separating unemployed migrants' need for social support from the workfare ambitions of the programme, aspects of privatization—such as freedom of choice and the service specification—further complicate this situation. Thus, the individualization aspects of the policy should be viewed as countering some of the more controlling aspects of the reform, thus, in effect, neutralizing its liberalizing tendencies.