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Programmes for vulnerable young people

Responsibility for several policy areas important to promote inclusion, such as education, social services, health care lies with municipalities and regions. Therefore, national programmes and initatives för vunerable young people often aim to support local programmes and initatives and promote cooperation. Following are some current and previous national programmes and evaluations.

Programmes promoting employment for young people 

Over the last decade the government has launched programmes and other initatives promoting employment for young people. A main target group for these programmes has been young people who have higher risk of long term unemployment and exclusion. 

In December 2014, the government decided on a delegation for combating youth unemployment at the local level, the Delegation for the Employment of Young People (Delegationen för unga till arbete, Dua), for the period 2015–2017. The mandate has since then been extended through 2022. The delegation was tasked with promoting constructive and flexible collaboration between the Swedish Public Employment Service and municipalities in order to reduce youth unemployment. The overall aim was to to accelerate the implementation of the Youth Guarantee (Jobbarantin för ungdomar). The Youth Guarantee is a current programme supporting unemployed young people between 16-24 years old who face greater obstacles to empoyment.

During 2015–2016 the delegation completed local agreements between the Public Employment Service and all 290 municipalities. During 2019 and 2020, the delegation has renewed these local agreements. The Delegation submitted its final report to the government in March 2023 (SOU 2023:7).

The final report made several recommendations to the government. One of them were to give the Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society (Myndigheten för ungdoms- och civilsamhällesfrågor, MUCF) a long term coordination and supporting role regarding young people who neither work nor study. In 2025 the government commissioned MUCF to act as a national resource for coordination and support regarding young people who neither work nor study until 2028 (MUCF 2025). A main target group is young people with mental health issues. The mission is divided into several initiatives. The agency will:

• coordinate and develop national cooperation between government agencies,
• support local actors who work with young people who neither work nor study or young people at risk of neither working nor studying,
• produce and share information and knowledge about young people who neither work nor study
• distribute state grants to municipalities and regions who cooperate with other actors in their work with young people who neither work nor study. 

Funding

Since 2014, financial coordination takes place between the Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan), The Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen), municipalities and regions through Coordination Agencies (Finansiella samordningsförbund, Finsam). The target group is individuals in working age 16–64 years, having physical, mental, social and/or work-related needs, and who need coordinated support from two or more of the collaborating parties. The goal is to become self-sufficient.

At the end of 2024 there were 69 Coordination Agencies, involving 274 of Sweden's 290 municipalities. Half of the financing is provided by the state, the rest is divided between municipalities and regions. Interventions targeting individuals get 80% of the total resources, and interventions targeting local collaboration 20%.

In 2024, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and the Swedish Public Employment Service, as in previous years, had a special task to work to ensure that the co-ordinating unions prioritize funding for initiatives for the long-term sick, young people with disabilities and young people with activity compensation. At the end of the year, a total of 97 initiatives targeting young people had been implemented, 77 of the initatives targeted young people with activity compensation and 84  targeting for young people with disabilities. Often these target groups overlap. Most of the initiatives were individual oriented activities (Försäkringskassan 2025).

The Coordination Agencies were in 2024 allocated 339 million Swedish kronor (30 million Euro) by the government, combined with an equal amount from municipalities och regions (Försäkringskassan 2025).

Funding of inclusive programmes within the ESF

It is common among the Coordination Agencies to participate in projects financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). ESF has target groups consistent with the Coordination Agencies within several programme areas. During the entire programme period 2014-2020, the Coordination Agencies have owned, co-financed or collaborated in a total of 113 unique ESF projects. In 2022, the Agencies had budgeted for approximately SEK 47 million in ESF funds (Försäkringskassan 2023).

Quality assurance

There are several evaluations of current and previous programmes. Two of the evaluations are presented below. 

Evaluation of the Delegation for the Employment of Young People

In 2020, Oxford Research evaluated how the Delegation has contributed to collaboration between municipalities and the Public Employment Service. The evaluation indicates that the delegation has contributed to moving collaboration from a latent phase to an emerging phase. The forms of collaboration between municipalities and the Public Employment Service have therefore been strengthened around young people and new arrivals. However, collaboration has not reached the final phase of the process. This is because the actors' collaboration is dependent on continued external support for further development.

According to the evaluation as well as the Delegations final report, the collaboration between municipalities and the Public Employment Service, to which the Delegation has contributed, risks weakening in the future. The reasons are due to the uncertainty surrounding the role of the Public Employment Service in connection with the authority's reduced organisation and ambiguity about what happens when the Delegation's assignment ends (SOU 2023:7).

Coordination Agencies

the Swedish Social Insurance Inspectorate (Inspektionen för socialförsäkringen, ISF) has been commissioned by the government to evaluate the activities that the Coordination Agencies finance. The main question was whether the Coordination Agencies' financing of initiatives leads to different development among municipalities that are members  compared with municipalities that are not members of a union. 
The analysis of young people between the ages of 19 and 24 who are neither working nor studying shows that the Coordination Agencies have significant effects on virtually all six follow-up years 2014-2020. This means that municipalities that are members of a Coordination Agency have a higher proportion of younger people who neither work nor study compared with municipalities that are not a part of the coordination. The evaluation finds that a sign of a more successful outreach to young people, who otherwise are seen as difficult to get in touch with (ISF 2023).