Background information

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, many Swedish employers’ have had to cut down the working hours of their employees and used the Swedish short-time allowance programme which allows them to receive financial compensation from the government.

Although many companies are now facing significant financial challenges, it is also important that the competencies of the employees are up to date. This will strengthen Swedish companies’ prospects both in the short and long term and also strengthen individual employees’ possibilities on the rapidly changing labour market. However, due to the financial challenges, many employers do not have the financial resources needed to provide training for the employees. Therefore, the central government has decided to provide financial compensation for training.

The legal basis of this measure is amendment 2020:1248 to Act on short-time work allowance (Lagen 2013:948 om stöd vid korttidsarbete).

Content of measure

This measure can be used to cover for costs relating to training that aims for increasing or validating competencies of an employee.

Only employers that are eligible for short-time work allowance can receive compensation. Training must take place during downtime. A local collective agreement or another type of written agreement is required.

This measure covers 60% of the costs of training. The maximum amount is between SEK 10,000 – 20,000 per employee (approximately €1,000 – 2,000).

The application process is expected to open in April 2021. Retroactive application will be possible as of January 2021. The total budget of this measure in 2021 is SEK 80 million (approximately €8 Million).

Use of measure

No information available.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Applies to all workers	Applies to all businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Consulted	Consulted
Form	Unknown	Unknown

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Unknown
• Main level of involvement: Peak or cross-sectoral level

Involvement

The social partners were given opportunity to submit comments on the proposal. Furthermore, the social partners were also consulted during the ealier stages of the design process.

Views and reactions

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise welcomes this measure. However, they have argued for instance against setting a maximum amount for this measure and would also like the state to cover 75% instead of 60% of the costs.

Similarly, the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (TCO) welcomes this measure. Some points of criticism presented by them include:

1. too low maximum amount of support per employee
2. too low maximum amount of coverage.

Sources

• 01 July 2020: Utkast till lagrådsremiss – Kompetentsinsatser vid korttidsarbete samt förslag till Förordning om kompetentsinsatser vid korttidsarbete (www.tco.se)
• 18 December 2020: Financial compensation for short-time workers' training (Kompetens­­insatser under korttids­arbete) (tillvaxtverket.se)
• 01 January 2021: Act 2013:98 on short-time work allowance (Lag (2013:948) om stöd vid korttidsarbete) (www.riksdagen.se)
• 01 January 2021: Remissvar Ersättning för kostnader för kompetensinsatser vid korttidsarbete Ersättning för kostnader för kompetensinsatser vid korttidsarbeteRemissvar Ersättning för kostnader för kompetensinsatser vid korttidsarbete (www.svensktnaringsliv.se)