The present paper describes the temporary language situation in Sweden. The country has a high rate of immigration and large minority groups have lived in Sweden for many hundreds of years. In order to reflect its cultural and language diversity Sweden has developed its own Language Law. This establishes Swedish as the main language in Sweden and declares five other languages to be national minority languages: Finnish, Meänkieli, Romani, Yiddish and Sami. Furthermore, the country’s language law protects and at the same time promotes Swedish Sign language. Swedish communes offer free Swedish courses for adult immigrants and immigrant children attend courses in Swedish as a Second Language both in primary and secondary school. Due to the multinational composition of Swedish suburbs a new variety of Swedish called rinkebysvenska has developed. This variety is characterized by many loan words from other languages, divergent pronunciation, morphology and syntax. Rinkebysvenska is used primarily by young immigrants living in Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö and has assumed the status not only of a Sociolect, but also of a special Swedish slang. The mobility of Swedish inhabitants within the country has led to a smoothing out of Swedish dialects so that differences can only be observed in pronunciation. On the other hand, there is a strong tendency to protect and develop Övdalian – one of the dialects that differs most from Swedish.
In contrast to the usual integration of migrant workers in the ‘bottom jobs’ on the labour market, the em-ployment of Ukrainian workers in Hungarian electronics plants seems to take place in a more beneficial way. With the active mediation of temporary (temp) agencies, Ukrainian migrant workers are offered regular blue-collar assembly work, together with the same social rights and benefits as their local Hungarian col-leagues. Relying, in our analysis, on the literature on industrial sociology, migration research and global value chains, we are developing a critical perspective in which migration and employment are not seen as separate spheres but as mutually reinforcing each other. We combine bottom-up empirical research based on interviews with workers and a sectoral inquiry on industrial and employment relations in the temp agency sector supplying multinational corporations. Our main argument is that complex contracting also means subtle controlling. Such contracting is not the cheapest form but it creates a different, efficient employment regime with dependent, controllable, flexibly available, ‘fluid’ employees. Employee respondents described their position as dependent, ‘out of control’ and a temporary earning opportunity. Devoid of clear mecha-nisms for controlling their work conditions or growth within the job, all respondents turned to a more instru-mental approach, in which they invested in building up social capital through friendships, networks and personal relationships. Obtaining Hungarian citizenship and learning the language were two other main strategies for dealing with insecurity. Their efforts correspond with and reinforce a more globally integrated but ethnically motivated immigration regime, characteristic of post-socialist Hungary.
Poland’s economy is closely connected with European markets, particularly within the European Union: almost 90% of Polish commodity export goes to European countries and 80% is absorbed by other EU countries. The common European market is absorptive, safe and stabile, and goods and services sold there are duty free. But the high concentration of exports in this market implies a strong dependence on the modest growth dynamics and local fluctuations of demand, while reducing the gains that could be obtained from the presence in emerging markets which include several large and rapidly growing developing economies. The paper gives a general characteristics of those markets, including the information on their economic and population potential, and their place in the world economy – at present and in the future (according to current statistical data and long-run forecasts). The statistics of Polish foreign trade indicates a very small share of emerging countries in the geographical structure of Poland’s exports. The author describes the chances and threats combined with export expansion to these markets, emphasizing that the net balance of benefits and risks is clearly positive, which should encourage Polish enterprises to take a more active part in trade and cooperation with those countries and regions.