2015-10-01 15:30

Refugees: Welcome to Sweden, You‘ll Get a Job in a Decade

 Dado Ruvic (Reuters / Scanpix)
Dado Ruvic (Reuters / Scanpix)
Social media star Mahmoud Bitar amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on Facebook in his flight from Syria to Sweden. Now, he posts videos joking about life as a refugee near the town of Oerebro.

Bitar is getting many offers to work as an actor, but can only „eat and sleep“ as he waits for a residence permit. „It‘s not as easy to live in Sweden as you may dream of,“ said Bitar, who worked in a hotel in Aleppo before fleeing in a trek that took him through the Middle East, Turkey and Greece on his way to Scandinavia.

He could be one of the lucky ones as soon as he gets his residence permit, in a year or so. But if the past is anything to go by, about half of the refugees arriving today in the Nordic nation will still be unemployed by 2025.

52795
130817
52791