Utbildade invandrare och kampen för ett jobb : En kvalitativ studie om hur några invandrare med akademisk utbildning beskriver sin situation på den svenska arbetsmarknaden

According to several studies immigrants today in general face more difficulties to enter the labor market than before. This also applies to educated immigrants who are the main focus of this thesis. Studies have shown that educated migrants have more difficulties of obtaining an adequate job than ethnic Swedes. Thousands of educated immigrants are forced to work in low skilled occupations to cope with their everyday lives. The reasons behind their lack of success on the Swedish labor market have been blamed on different kinds of obstacles. This study wants to examine at least some of the obstacles that educated immigrants face on the labor market through some informants own personal reflections and experiences. The study is based on an inside perspective in which the different personal experiences and reflections of the various informants is of great importance. The study is focused on how five educated immigrants describe their situation on the Swedish labor market. The aim is to investigate the informants 'understanding of the difficulties they have to get a job that matches their skills. It also aims to discuss the structural barriers that respondents relate to when they describe their situation. The results of the interviews with the informants have been analyzed with the help of central concepts gained from the two sociologists, Erving Goffman and Pierre Bourdieu. The results of my study have shown through the personal experiences of the informants that the difficulties they face on the labor market can be attributed to their lack of access to valuable social networks and to the various requirement profiles that exist from employers, often with a strong focus on a developed knowledge of the Swedish language. These two obstacles results in that the skilled migrants on the labor market have a relative disadvantage in comparison with ethnic Swedes in the search for the attractive jobs.