Youth unemployment and the cynical treatment of young adults

Total youth unemployment in Sweden is almost 25 percent (according to Ekonomifakta, August 2026). It is almost the highest in the entire EU. Behind the numbers are young people who are on the verge of giving up even before their adult life has begun. Let me give a little insight into what life for a 19-year-old can look like today.

They are looking for a job. Work on work on work. Almost every advertisement, regardless of the type of work, states that the applicant must be "on fire". Passionate about service, passionate about cleaning, passionate about good customer service, passionate about groceries. The applicant should also ideally have a few years' experience in the profession and be prepared to work part-time and move in at short notice.

If the application is for a job with one of the larger retail or food chains, the application process is similar to the selection for "Idol". First, you must submit a video where you tell us how passionate you are about service. If you have succeeded in convincing the recruiter with your sales video, the elimination phase follows. The first interviews often take place in groups, where it is important to stand out and be noticed. This is often followed by generic personality tests, more interviews, and finally the appointment of the position. To sit in the till at Ica.

For those who do not make it all the way through the obstacle course of the application process, only silence follows. It is one of the exceptions that the 19-year-olds even receive a standard email where they are told that the job has gone to another applicant. Most of the time it's just completely silent.

"Sending in job applications feels like standing and shouting straight into the dark," as one of the two 19-year-olds in my household put it. So to your employers: Excuse me, but who do you think you are? What is your excuse for treating young people this way? No one is "passionate about groceries". What you are offering is a job, not a place in the "Idol" finale.

In addition to this, young people today are also exposed to advanced gaslighting (a form of psychological manipulation where one person systematically causes another to doubt their memory, their judgment and their perception of reality, DN's note) by politics. Swedish politicians are not significantly interested in unemployment, and when the issue is even discussed, our leaders tell us that unemployment is the individual's fault. There's nothing wrong with the labor market, when people don't get jobs it's because they're immigrants, don't speak the language or want to live on benefits, apparently.

I can report that the message has gotten through: young adults look at themselves and their situation and conclude that they don't count, that their lives and existence don't matter at all. As a parent, it is heartbreaking to see your children grow up in a society that clearly communicates that young people are not wanted.

Employers and politicians should be ashamed. 25 percent of Sweden's young people are not unemployed because they want to live on benefits. They do everything they can, turn themselves inside out. But there are no jobs.

When you're done joking, I suggest you do your job: try to solve the problem instead of pretending it exists.