How does unemployment insurance currently work in Sweden?

Unemployment insurance in Sweden is provided by a set of voluntary funds, which you may not know about if you’ve moved to Sweden from abroad. Membership of an a-kassa (short for arbetslöshetskassa, which means unemployment fund) can ensure you still receive the majority of your previous salary if you lose your job.

Anyone who works or has worked in Sweden is allowed to join an a-kassa and there are a range of different funds you can join with different membership fees. You don’t need to be a member of a union to join an unemployment fund.

Unemployment insurance is covered by the labour market contribution that employers and self-employed workers pay into the state, as well as membership fees for a-kassor (that’s the plural of a-kassa). Payouts are based on your salary, with a maximum payout of 26,400 kronor a month before tax.

There’s also a limited state provision known as grundersättning with a lower payout – 11,220 a month maximum – to cover you if you’re not a member of an a-kassa or have been a member for less than 12 months.

How is this going to change?

The new rules, proposed by the Swedish government and the Sweden Democrats, would see the number of days of unemployment benefit offered increase depending on how long the person in question has worked.

Working for four months with a monthly income of at least 11,000 kronor would give you 100 days of a-kassa unemployment benefit, eight months would give you 200 days and eleven months would give you the maximum 300 days of benefits.

This would increase the financial security of new arrivals in Sweden, who currently have to work in Sweden for a full year before qualifying for unemployment benefits. It would mean that instead of only receiving the lower grundersättning before completing a year of work in Sweden, they would be able to receive the higher a-kassa amount after just four months.

The current system also sees the amount of money offered decrease the longer you receive benefits. This system would be tweaked slightly under the new rules so that the amount of money offered drops every 100 days: 80 percent of your salary for the first 200 days (although the daily cap decreases from 1,200 to 1,000 kronor on day 101), 70 percent from day 201-300 and 65 percent from day 300 onwards.

Under the new proposal, the benefit amount under the new rules would decrease by 10 percentage points after 100 days to 70 percent, dropping a further 5 percentage points to 65 percent after 200 days.

If the benefit recipient is still unemployed after 300 days they would be able to switch to aktivitetsstöd, jobseeker benefits offered by Sweden’s Public Employment Service, with aktivitetsstöd also decreasing by 5 percentage points every hundred days.

“A-kassa should be a trampoline towards new opportunities,” labour market minister Johan Pehrson said at a press conference announcing the proposal alongside finance minister Elisabeth Svantesson.

“The current a-kassa system needs to be reformed, among other things to create a clearer path back into work.”

Under the current system, Pehrson argued, it is possible in practice to remain unemployed for years at a relatively high level of benefits, meaning that there is little motivation to apply for new jobs.

The new proposal is expected to come into force in October 2025, and the cost to the state is expected to remain broadly similar despite more people being eligible, due to the decrease in benefit each hundred days.