Private job coaches offered to help control wives

It is possible for a man to get the help of private job coaches to control his wife in the Arbetsförmedlingen's billion-dollar initiative Rusta and matcha. This is revealed by SVT Nyheter Skåne and Uppdrag review with the help of hidden recordings.

Arbetsförmedlingen pays billions of dollars each year to private companies in the initiative Rusta och matcha. They have been tasked with getting the long-term unemployed into jobs or studies.

Wants the wife to stay at home

SVT's reporter pretends to be a husband to a job-seeking wife. He claims that he wants to make arrangements with the coaches about his wife's presence and get promises that the woman's absence will not be reported to the Employment Service, even if she is abroad.

See "Fuskförmedlingen" in SVT Play

The reporter tells a job coach in Helsingborg that he wants his wife to stay at home and not have to look for a job.

- I understand, I will help you. I understand you brother, the coach replies.

33 companies offer help

SVT pretends to be a man who wants help checking his wife in a total of 72 offices around Sweden. 33 of them say they are ready to help.

SVT has been in contact with the companies seen or heard in the report. A majority say they take seriously what is said.

Several have responded that they have started internal investigations. Some companies believe that SVT draws incorrect conclusions from the conversations or that the audio clips are taken out of context.

Some of the coaches say their purpose was to get in touch with the woman and help her.

"A societal challenge"

The employment agency's director general Maria Hemström Hemmingsson says that they will follow up on the disclosure.

- We must return to what we are doing. It is not at all certain that we can communicate it externally. Because it is about checks and they are not always done best if those who are to be checked know how it is done.

Should we accept that this is the case?

- No, we absolutely must not find ourselves in this way. We have to work with it on many different levels. But this is a societal challenge and it is a challenge for the trust-based system we have in Sweden, where we trust people and suppliers.

Hear the director general of the Employment Agency react to the disclosure in the clip: