Sweden: Legislative changes in the Employment Protection Act applicable
As informed in the June 2022 monthly update, there have been legislative changes to the Employment Protection Act. The changes apply to all employers from 1 October 2022.
When assessing whether to dismiss an employee due to personal reasons, the employer no longer has to take into account the employee’s personal situation or interest in retaining employment, nor do they have to make a forecast about the risk of the employee repeating his behavior. With regard to dismissal due to dismissal, all employers now have the right to exclude three employees when determining the order of dismissal in a dismissal situation. In the event of a dispute over the validity of a dismissal, the employer must no longer bear the risk of continued payments of the employee’s salary and benefits during the trial. Only if the court annuls the dismissal will the employer be obliged to retroactively pay wages and benefits to which the employee would have been entitled during the trial, as well as additional damages.
Furthermore, general fixed-term employment has been replaced with special fixed-term employment. The special fixed-term employment automatically changes to a permanent employment after twelve months of fixed-term employment. In addition, a rotation order has been introduced for situations where an employer intends to redeploy an employee to a position with fewer working hours, which means that employees with a longer total period of employment must be the last to be redeployed.
Staffing employees who have been employed by the same company for at least 24 months in a 36-month period are now entitled to be offered either permanent employment with the company or financial compensation equivalent to two months’ wages.
Important action points for staff and internal advice
Legislative changes to the Employment Protection Act mean, among other things, includingthat all employers may exempt three employees from the order of rotation and that general fixed-term employment is converted to permanent employment after twelve months instead of after two years.