Hisham Sarwar
The widening skill gap is being addressed more than ever by all the nations around the world. In many countries special federal funding has been authorized for cities and states to conduct workforce innovation and opportunity programs in order to make the workforce future-ready. Technical skills in today’s world are a precious commodity and actually set an economy apart from the higher growth economies that simply count on physical capital.
These technical skills are more in demand in the developed as well as developing economies and they ensure not to stumble as they try to fill the gap by hiring rising talent. Pakistani’s in the field of IT industry are making a name by learning new and best practices in IT. Their services are highly regarded by the foreign countries and companies.
This is the reason, that case of a Pakistani native and a Dynamo developer Tayyab Shabab in Sweden has become an important issue. Just because of a previous employee’s error, the bureaucrats in Stockholm have determined to deport the programmer.
In 2013, Tayyab Shabab at the age of 27, left Pakistan and went to Sweden for getting a master’s degree in computer sciences. He became a Stockholm-based apps and mobile solutions developer and got permanently hired by the Dynamo. He is currently living with his wife in the Swedish Capital.
This all started when Tayyab got his application for a new work and residence permit rejected by the Sweden Immigration authority. The former employee actually forgot to withhold Tayyab’s pension payments which he was supposed to give due to the visa terms and conditions in Sweden. An employer’s error can cause Tayyab cancelling of his visa.
Because of this Tayyab’s colleagues are now trying to help him fight against the decision of the Swedish migration authority. According to the Dynamo, the company that hired Tayyab for his talent regards him among the absolute world class developers.
The Nordic’s Web’s founding editor has launched a petition for this purpose to help Tayyab not to be deported because of the mistake he is not responsible for. The petition plans to achieve the goal of getting the 7500 Swedish signatures in order to keep the developer in the country and employed. The petitions has been able to achieve the 5,480 signatures till now and has grabbed immense attention including the TechChrunch’s editor Mike Butcher and Spotify’s founder Daniel EK.
All the tech leaders have started taking notice of this unruly behavior of the Swedish authorities and are showing their support for the developer’s situation. The SUP46 Co-Founder and CEO, Jessica Stark has also signed this petition. Another CEO of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce has launched a campaign for supporting Tayyab’s case. She regards him as an asset for the country’s future development as computer programming is a highly regarded profession in Stockholm. According to her, Pakistan and India are among those countries which provide a lot of top tech talent. There is a lack of local talent in Sweden and top professionals from abroad are very much helpful for filling up the gap.
But Swedish authorities are becoming strict with the immigration visa policies. It because of the rising sexual assaults that have been reported in the country and the authorities fear that many immigrants are behind such cases.
The Swedish authorities have explained the case as a regular case regarding permits and they are bound by the rules to take an action. The work visa rules in Sweden are such that a person is bound to pay a certain amount of payment from his specific salary under specific conditions and insurance.
In case of Shabab, his previous employer under paid the pension and that certainly is not his fault.
Meanwhile, for the South Asian IT Specialists, this is not a good situation. They are anxiously waiting for the outcomes of Tayyab’s case because it means a lot for their own future in Sweden.
The community is hopeful that it is not too late to avoid Tayyab’s deportion.
Meanwhile, here is the Petition https://www.change.org/p/the-swedish-government-ensure-tayyab-is-allowed-to-keep-his-job-life-and-home-in-sweden?recruiter=2045815&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_term=des-lg-no_src-no_msg
