“Shocked jam prices” when berry pickers are refused

Published 3 July 2024 at 12.18

Domestic. The Migration Agency has rejected most applications from foreign berry pickers this year, and the lack of labor can, according to Dagens Nyheter, result in “shockingly high” prices.

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In Sweden, the Employment Agency cannot force grant recipients to take a job as a berry picker – because the authority can only offer employment conditions that are on par with Swedish collective agreements.

Since neither Swedes nor immigrants want to indulge in picking berries, the job must be handled by seasonal workers who are flown in from Asia.

According to the Swedish Migration Agency's official statistics, 2,447 applications have been received from berry pickers so far this year and of these 1,945 have been rejected.

In recent years, it has been exclusively Thai citizens who have been employed as wild berry pickers in Sweden via staffing companies.

The Swedish Migration Agency decided earlier in June to reject roughly 1,200 applications from Thai citizens. In connection with the appeal, the employers provided new information on how they are to remedy the deficiencies in the working conditions. The Migration Court decided on June 26 to refer all cases back to the Migration Agency – a judgment that will not be appealed.

But on the same day that the rejection notice from the Migration Agency came, the prices of lingonberries from China rose by 30 percent in Europe.

– Of course they realize that lingonberries will be in short supply and then there will be an immediate market adjustment, says Andreas Fall, CEO of the food producer Danica Foods, to DN.

Blueberry prices will increase “significantly more” than lingonberry prices , according to Fall.

He also flags that Swedish berry products can be up to twice as expensive.

During 2023, 5,372 out of nearly 6,000 applications to the Migration Agency from berry pickers who applied for a work permit were granted .