100 ukrainian refugees attended the first Ukraine Job Fair in Stockholm
On 23 August, the Ukraine Job Fair hosted a physical event in Stockholm. The turnout was great and around 100 Ukrainian refugees got to meet recruiters from Lernia and attend workshops with LinkedIn. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg supports the project Ukraine Job Fair and gave the Ukrainians a helping hand at the event.
During the live event, Lernia presented how they help match workers with the right employers and offered Ukrainian jobseekers personal speed-dating interviews with professional recruiters. LinkedIn, which is also an important partner in the project, was also on site to help job seekers with tips on how they can use LinkedIn’s platform to reach out to employers.
The digital recruitment platform Ukraine Job Fair is open digitally all year round, so that anyone can registrer and search for jobs. On specific dates there will be live events in the platform, which makes it possible for even more people from all around Sweden to participate.
Currently, over 1,000 Ukrainians have registered their profile in the platform and over 300 relevant job advertisements have been published.
Why Ukraine Job Fair?
In Sweden, there are 10,000s of Ukrainians who are waiting to enter the working life but find it difficult to get a job because of the language barrier. In a unique collaboration between the tech startup company Virtual Days, the aid organization Solidarity & Human Rights and the educational group Lernia, we now launch Ukraine Job Fair – an initiative to be able to help more Ukrainians into the workforce.
Statistics from the Swedish Migration Agency show that 40,000 Ukrainian refugees are in Sweden today. Most of them are women and children who came here during the war. But getting a job has proven difficult, as up to 90% of the Ukrainian refugees lack knowledge of Swedish.
– We realized how difficult it is for them to navigate correctly among all the authorities and support services to enter the Swedish labor market. With the platform Ukraine Job Fair we hope to help solve this problem. The first event was a success with 100 attendees, and we hope we can continue helping more Ukrainians find work going forward, says Björn Strand, co-founder of Virtual Days and initiator of the project.
Ukraine Job Fair – A joint initiative
This project is a joint initiative with Solidarity & Human Rights, which consists of representatives from the Red Cross, the Church of Sweden, Fryshuset, New Community, the Salvation Army and War Child Sweden, and Virtual Days, that together have developed a virtual platform that will make it easier to get more people into work through more flexible and smarter processes and digital matching technology. The digital platform Ukraine Job Fair is open all year round with the aim of matching Ukrainians in Sweden with the right employer. A number of digital and physical live events are held with recruiters offer them relevant jobs. According to the mass displacement directive, employers can apply for a grant and receive compensation for up to 80% of salary costs when hiring an Ukrainian.
For more info please contact Lina Högemark, CMO, Virtual Days lina@virtualdays.com / 073-693 09 73
