new employment legislation changes in Sweden

In case you haven’t had time to read about the new employment legislation changes in Sweden, here is a short summary of the changes, which came into effect last Saturday, 1 October 2022. Don’t forget that deviations from the below may be set forth by applicable collective bargaining agreements. Objective grounds become objective reasons. No change for redundancy. For terminations due to personal reasons, the employer will no longer be required to make a future forecast of whether the employee will continue to breach his/her obligations in the employment. As a main rule, the employer will only be required to make one relocation offer. In summary, no significant difference compared with today.

General fixed-term employment becomes specific fixed-term employment. General fixed-term employment (Sw. allmän visstidsanställning) is replaced by specific fixed-term employment (Sw. särskild visstidsanställning). The qualification period for when a specific fixed-term employment will transfer to an indefinite employment is 12 months (previously 24 months for general fixed-term employment). It is important to keep track of the days, since a month is considered to be 30 days, which means that a specific fixed-term employment will transfer into an indefinite employment after 360 days. Furthermore, the new provisions mean that if an employee has had at least three specific fixed-term employments during one month, the time between the employments will also count as time of employment (NOTE! Keep track of so-called intermittent employments).

Presumption of full-time employment. A presumption is introduced that an employment constitutes a full-time employment, unless otherwise is agreed. In case of a dispute, the employer must show that the parties have agreed on part-time employment.

An employment will not remain in case of a dispute. In case there is a dispute regarding the validity of a termination, the employment shall as a rule end when the notice period has expired. This is a major change and means that the employer, as a rule, only needs to pay salary to the employee during the notice period.

Exemptions from the priority rules. The new rules entails entail that all employers, regardless of number of employees etc., may exempt three employees from the priority list (Sw. turordningslistan).

Changes for staffing employees. A customer company who has hired personnel from a staffing company (Sw. bemanningsföretag) shall offer an indefinite employment, or offer compensation equivalent to two months’ salary, to such staffing employee that has been placed at the organisational unit at the customer company for at least 24 months during a period of 36 months. Important to examine the applicability of the rules also in consulting relationships.

Relocation to an employment with reduced working hours. Relocating of an employee that only entails a reduced employment rate (so-called planning (Sw. hyvling)) must in some cases be done in order based on length of employment. Furthermore, in the case of relocation that only entails a reduced employment rate, a certain adjustment period shall always apply corresponding to the notice period – up to a maximum of 3 months.

Further questions? Contact us here