The Beveridge curve shows that matching efficiency between unemployed persons and job vacancies in the Swedish labour market deteriorated both after the financial crisis in 2009 and in connection with the 2020 pandemic. It is common for matching efficiency to deteriorate in times of crisis. However, the fact that it has not recovered from the crises can largely be explained by the changing composition of the unemployed as a result of large-scale refugee and family immigration, from the mid-2000s until the pandemic. According to the Beveridge curve, matching efficiency has recovered somewhat in recent years, although not quite to the same level as in the years before the pandemic. This is because foreign-born persons currently make up a slightly larger share of total unemployment and have a lower job-finding rate on average. The estimated matching function shows that the job-finding rates for the unemployed have now largely returned to the historical correlation with the labour market conditions, after a prolonged period of poorer matching efficiency. This contributes to lower equilibrium unemployment.

The fact that the improved matching efficiency in recent years is not reflected in the unemployment figures is partly due to the economic situation and partly to an increased inflow into the labour force, and thus higher labour force participation rate. While unemployment is high, even the employment rate is at a high level. Despite some decline over the past year, the employment rate for foreign-born persons is almost 4 percentage points higher than before the pandemic. Focusing solely on unemployment therefore paints too bleak a picture of the Swedish labour market in general and the situation of foreign-born persons in particular. Matching efficiency varies with the economic situation and there is reason to believe that it will continue to improve as the economy recovers.