The Swedish government is proposing to increase the ceiling for sick pay from the current 8 price base amounts to 10 price base amounts from 1 January 2022. This affects how sick pay currently paid out by Försäkringskassan (the Swedish Social Insurance Agency) will be calculated and may also affect you as an employer.
Under the proposals, sick pay will be as follows:
- Based on income earned up to 10 price base amounts per year
- Sick pay ceiling in 2022: Annual income of SEK 483,000 instead of SEK 386,400
Things to consider as an employer
It’s important that you as an employer check whether you pay sick pay to your employees for days 15 to 90 and, if so, how this is calculated. If you have a collective agreement, it will probably be updated so that the calculation of sick pay for days 15 to 90 follows the new regulations. However, you need to follow this up with your employer organisation and ensure that an updated collective agreement is submitted to your payroll department in good time in order to make the necessary updates to the payroll system.
If you don’t have a collective agreement but have still chosen to use your company policy to regulate your payment of sick pay, you will need to review this and consider whether you want to adapt the policy to the new levels. For those of you who have voluntarily chosen to pay sick pay for days 15 to 90 without a collective agreement, there is no requirement to increase your sick pay to the new levels, but this depends on the wording of your policy and you will need to review it. Bear in mind that an update may be in order to keep up with the terms offered in the labour market and thus be a competitive employer. If you do update your policy, make sure you submit this to your payroll department in good time.
When do these changes affect salaries?
Sick pay is usually settled in arrears, which means that days 15 to 90 are paid the month after the employee has been absent according to the approved actual time sheet. If the proposal goes through as planned, it will mean that calculations under the updated formulae will not apply until the February salary.
If you have any questions about the new rules and how they affect you, just get in touch with us at Azets.