“New Ways of Recruiting – an Evaluation of the SAF Efforts of Recruiting Ethnic Minorities”

The transition to an all-volunteer force in Sweden has meant that the Swedish armed forces (SAF) need to try different ways to recruit personnel. For countries that abandoned conscription, there have almost always arisen recruitment problems.  The new direction for the SAF, going from an invasion based defense to a more operational defense force with international focus, puts demands on cultural awareness and language skills among soldiers and officers to another extent than before. In November 2012 the SAF, together with the Swedish Public Employment (SPES) Service, started a joint project called preparatory military training. The aim of this project was to attract 500 individuals with a cultural background from outside the European Union, and language skills in other languages than Swedish and English, to start a 10 weeks long preparatory military training. Preparatory military training aims at giving participants an insight into how a career in the armed forces would look like, as well as get the opportunity to develop academically. Out of these 500 individuals, the SAF aims at recruiting 300 individuals to start the basic military training in the SAF. All participants live at the military barracks and receive free meals and they are allowed paid travel home four times during the course and are paid activity support from the Swedish Public Employment Agency.  Men and women live separately with separate facilities. The SAF and the SPES share 50 % of the education and training at the barracks.

Phase two of the project starts in the autumn of 2013 and aims at attracting 300 individuals to start the preparatory military training.

The paper assesses the effectiveness of this new and original project.