Pledge 18 – Malmo

On 13 February 2019, Malmo became the 18th city to sign a pledge to the European Pillar of Social Rights. The Mayor of Malmo Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh signed a strong commitment to ensure equal opportunities (principle 3) and provide active support to employment (principle 4).

To achieve equal opportunities, Malmo is committed to deliver a strategic plan on non-discriminatory and equal access to municipal services. To this end, Malmo pledges to:

• Train all directors, managers and employers within the city administration about Swedish anti-discrimination laws to ensure the city of Malmo provides a discrimination-free workplace for its 25,500 employees.
• Invest over €1 million in 2017-2019 in the Roma knowledge and information centre to implement the local action plan for inclusion of Swedish Roma minority in all parts of society.
• Set up a ‘Malmo Council for the national Roma minority’ where politicians and Roma representatives meet regularly.

To provide active support to employment, Malmo is committed to:

• Increase the number of social welfare beneficiaries participating in job-seeking initiatives (already an increase of 43% from 2017 to 2018).
• Invest €2.88 million (30 million SEK) in 2019 to get 6,000 high school students into 1,140 summer internships (30% more than in 2018) offered by private and public employers in Malmo.
• Invest €22,2 million to offer Swedish language courses to 4,600 people with migrant background as a means to help them access the local labour market.

Malmo’s Mayor Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh said: “A stronger social Europe is a Europe of inclusive cities with inclusive labour markets. Malmo works actively to give citizens and residents equal access to the labour market and equal opportunities. Anyone who can work should be allowed and enabled to work”.