Sweden’s sick-pay fight puts household income on the negotiating table

A sick-pay deduction can take more than SEK 1,400 from a worker’s income before tax. Whether Sweden should abolish it has become a dividing line between parties trying to agree on the country’s next government.

The Social Democrats, Nooshi Dadgostar’s Left Party and the Greens want to scrap karensavdrag, while the Centre Party wants to retain it. SVT reports that business representatives are pressing the Centre Party to resist abolition alongside proposed tax rises and shorter working hours.

The household cost is visible in an official calculation from Verksamt. An employee earning SEK 220 an hour and working 40 hours a week receives sick pay at SEK 176 an hour. Their average weekly sick pay is SEK 7,040, making the deduction SEK 1,408.

That is a worked example, not a universal charge. The deduction normally equals 20 per cent of an average week’s sick pay, and its size depends on earnings and working hours. Collective agreements can specify the calculation. If someone falls ill halfway through a working day and remains sick, the remaining deduction can carry into the next day.

Removing it would restore SEK 1,408 before tax in that example, where the full deduction applies. Ordinary sick pay would still be 80 per cent of salary unless that rule also changed.

Employers opposing abolition warn about the cost to businesses. For employees, the immediate gain would be a smaller income loss during illness. The unresolved political question is who should absorb that cost, and whether a governing agreement will redistribute it.

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