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SummarySwedish sickness insurance and temporary
employment
The Swedish Social Insurance Inspectorate (Inspektionen för social-
försäkringen, ISF) is an independent supervisory agency for the Swedish
social insurance system. The objectives of the agency are to strengthen
compliance with legislation and other statutes, and to improve the
efficiency of the social insurance system through system supervision and
efficiency analysis and evaluation.
The ISF’s work is mainly conducted on a project basis and is commissioned
by the Government or initiated autonomously by the agency. This report
has been initiated by the agency.
Background
The right to sickness benefit is differently assessed for the employed
compared to the unemployed. If a person is employed, the right to sickness
benefit is, for the first 90 days of sick leave, assessed in relation to the
ability to carry out the person’s current work. For an unemployed person,
the work ability is compared to the possibility of carrying out work on the
regular labour market from day 1 of the sick leave. If a person is
temporarily employed, they can either be seen as employed or unemployed
from an insurance perspective. A person’s employment status can therefore
have an impact on the right to sickness benefit.
In Sweden, 16 per cent of all employees are in temporary employment.
It is more common for women to be in temporary employment than men.
Temporary employment is common in health and social work. This sector
is female-dominated and has the highest sickness rate among employees
in Sweden, according to figures from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency.
The municipalities and county councils are large employers within this
sector.
Objectives
This report has two objectives. Firstly, it aims to give an overview
regarding the implications of sickness insurance legislation for the
temporarily employed. Secondly, it aims to describe how the temporarily
employed use sickness insurance compared to the permanently employed.
The description is limited to employees within municipalities and county
councils.