1.5 million Swedes with out unemployment insurance protection
Sunday, 05 February 2012
It is not very clear how it has come to this but more Swedish able
bodied workers have decided not to join any form of unemployment
insurance scheme. This is blamed on the exorbitant costs and
bureaucracy the scheme has adopted in recent years.
As such, more and more Swedes who have or are looking for works choose
to remain outside the unemployment insurance scheme, known here n
Sweden as “a-kassan” a recent Swedish television news investigative
program show.
In total, it has been accounted that some nearly 1.5 million people in
Sweden or one third of the workforce have been affected. This has
ignited discussion on the issue which has to do with unemployment
benefit and how its can be made more favourable for claimants so that
the trend should out gallop out of control.
In December 2006, Sweden’s labour force, that is all employed and
unemployed people together, made over 4.6 million people. Of these, 844
000 are not members of an unemployment insurance fund. This was
exacerbated when the contribution was increased sharply as such around
half a million Swedes got out of any such scheme.
In November last year, the unemployment insurance funds only managed to
lure back a fifth of those who had disappeared while the labour had
time to rise to just under 4.9 million. Of those, 1.463 million are not
members of an unemployment insurance fund, an increase of 73 percent.
An umbrella organization that takes care of all unemployment insurance
funds in Sweden, argues that the system is too expensive, and also
complicated.
“To get back the members of unemployment insurance funds, the fee must
be reduced and the conditions become easier to understand. It must also
provide a better alternative. Today, only around 10 percent of those
who become unemployed actually receive 80 percent of previous income,
says Melker Ödebring who is Secretary of the Unemployment Insurance
umbrella organisation, SO.
A cheaper and more equitable unemployment compensation scheme with
higher benefits would be well worth it. Another solution that has been
discussed extensively is some form of compulsory unemployment
insurance, but even though the government promised to introduce it in
some form, it still seems to linger.
At the moment the issue is being investigated and assessed for the second time.
By Scancomark.se Team
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