A desirable new job is opening in Sweden in 2026. It promotes a competitive salary, with annual wage increases and permanent job security – with no obligation to do anything. The artwork commission, titled Eternal Employment, is funded by the Public Art Agency Sweden and the Swedish Transport Administration, and created by the Swedish artist duo Goldin+Senneby.
The artists will award one person a lifetime job with no rules or specific productivity, other than they check in and out every day at Korsvägen, a huge transportation centre in Gothenburg, Sweden – part of the West Link railway tunnel project. The district of Korsvägen is currently undergoing a significant transformation towards a new cultural urban hub. It was this shift that inspired the artists to develop the project – giving total control to a worker as the power dynamic of the district changes.
Lotta Mossum, chief curator at the Public Art Agency Sweden, says: “My personal interpretation is that the work is about what happens to us people when we ourselves have to invent the content/substance/pleasure of the work. There are both enjoyable activities and less pleasurable – like the boredom factor, and everything in between”.
The artists have set up a foundation to manage the project, which will choose and employ the employee. The artwork’s budget is SEK 6.5 million (EUR 617.000), and the artists have calculated that the return on that capital should cover a monthly salary of SEK 21.600 (EUR 2.050), for 120 years (should the person choose to resign or retire, another employee will be chosen). The salary will be paid for by the interest the capital accrues – “As long as we live in a society where the return on capital is substantially higher than the average increase in wages, Eternal Employment is kept afloat”.
The official job application will not be advertised until a date aligned to the opening of the new Korsvägen Station in 2026 – however, the full job description is accessible here.
Futurity: When r > g the Past Eats the Future
The central thesis in Thomas Picketty’s bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013) is that in a society where the rate of return on capital (r) is greater than the economic growth (g) inequality will grow exponentially. Old money eats new money. Or, in other words, our future is sold at a discount to those who already have.
(Images published with permission from Statens Konstråd/Public Art Agency Sweden.)