10 ms·

Sweden's leave of absence system helps workers launch their own business

143 points by velik_m 8y ago

52-6F-62 8y ago
I think this is brilliant, but I’m interested to hear criticisms or arguments against it.
- piker 8y ago
  Even assuming there's a de minimis exemption for small businesses, one unintended consequence could be increasing employment costs which would negatively effect business formation by disproportionately favoring established entities that could afford the luxury.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    The article doesn't have details, really— but as the leave is unpaid I gather most of the costs would come in the form of any production delays or HR/admin. This makes me curious as to whether there are grants or subsidies from the government in support of the program.
- AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
  Well, the biggest argument against it will be a need to find and train a temporary replacement for the person. For many positions finding and training alone may take longer than that. And then what do you do with the replacement once the original guy is back? Overall though, I would agree that benefits overweight potential problems.
  - thatguyagain 8y ago
    Some people can choose to work 50% instead of a 100% leave, so there are ways to solve it.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    I imagine the situation would be quite similar to how we handle maternity/paternity leave here in Canada, and it's rarely a problem. Once its an accepted pattern, there are fewer surprises, and most people are understanding.
    - Tor3 8y ago
      Exactly. It was briefly mentioned in the article too. Sweden already has a mature maternity/paternity system in place, and companies handle those just fine (in most cases, if they're doing any kind of planning and thinking). Thus they can handle these kinds of leaves as well - it's minor when you compare to the number of maternity/paternity leaves, there's much more of the latter. And (as it was mentioned in the article), it is possible to say 'no' to the leave if the employee's position is crucial (presumably there are definitions for what the actually means). Or hold it off for some time. Unlike with maternity/paternity leaves. I wish there was something like this in my country as well.
  - rightbyte 8y ago
    The employeer should have a "replacement" ready anyway since people might also quit. Preparing for the pssobility of this or eg. paternity leave is a good anti-employee lock-in meassure for skilled workers. A possible argument against the system is that there are many temp working contracts to fill in for the fulltimers on leave.
- dahart 8y ago
  I think so too, I would love to have entrepreneur leave. Having quite my job to start a business before, the main thought in my head is that 6 months is not anywhere near long enough for the vast majority of business ideas to get off the ground, let alone succeed. In order to have any chance of success in 6 months, you would need to have launched your product before starting the 6 month period. You’d want to have secured financing, get any partners and/or employees in place, finish all legal paperwork, set up a payment system, build the product and begin marketing, all before you leave your day job. Any one of those things can easily eat more than 6 months. My startup was a 2 person software service -- just about the easiest thing you can do business wise -- and it took a year after quitting my job before we could even take money, and 2 years before we made enough money to pay our operational costs.
  - elliekelly 8y ago
    > My startup was a 2 person software service -- just about the easiest thing you can do business wise This gave me a chuckle. To most people who aren't on HN a software service, no matter the size, is a major business undertaking. I have a friend who started a pilates studio. She loves pilates and the startup costs are minimal - a few thousand dollars total mostly for a small inventory of yoga pants and athleisure gear to sell. She quit her finance job to get it off the ground thinking it would take at least a year. It took her six weeks to have enough membership subscriptions to make her business profitable. She's a brilliant businesswoman and was working the front desk at a pilates studio and teaching a few classes. After three months she was understandably very bored. Her company still hadn't found a replacement for her so she hired a college kid to sit at the front desk and went right back to work. There are a lot of "analog" small businesses people could get off the ground in 6 months I just think they aren't the sort we're used to hearing about here because HN is so tech focused.
    - dahart 8y ago
      FWIW, the popular alternative to software I had in my mind is starting a restaurant. It's pretty hard to do that in 6 months and usually costs a lot more up front than software. You have a good point. My wife started teaching piano lessons after I quit my job, and her studio was at full capacity before my business was making any money. She's been at it for a while, but like your friend she's also experiencing a loss of motivation to continue doing it. You're right that single person & analog face-to-face services are very easy businesses to start. I have to wonder if those are the kind that Sweden is actually encouraging with their leave program. These kinds of businesses don't scale at all, there's a growth wall that most people never get over, even when they're among the few that survive the motivation problem. This is especially true when the business is initially launched as a personal service and needs very little planning or investment.
- jampekka 8y ago
  Overall I think it's a good thing, but one problem is that systems like these are really starting to create two tiers of workers, as is discussed in the end of the article. Generally one has to have a permanent contract for programs like these (e.g. in Finland you can go to study for two years and get paid a nice fraction of your pay from the unemployment fund). In theory this shouldn't be much of a problem because all jobs should be on permanent basis by default and fixed-term contracts should be only for very special purposes. In practice this is not enforced and especially for lower paying jobs (and some even higher educated fields, such as teachers or nurses) its quite common not to get permanent contracts at all. Because of this, there's almost a new social class of permanent contract workers who have great benefits and programs, and beneath them a constantly growing underclass on temp contracts, shitty working conditions and little benefits. It's sort of absurd that some paper pusher can get paid for doing any studies they wish more than a cleaner or store clerk gets paid while working. The systems were largely created before the neoliberal era started in Nordic countries in the 90's or so when employer protection was very strong across the board. But as the protection has crumbled for the "underclass", the system starts to at times look something like the olden privileges of the higher castes.
  - tsacc 8y ago
    Essentially the same in Sweden. If you are well off you can enjoy many different systems and laws, from paid for private schools to secure employment and good benefits. While those young and worse off are facing cutbacks and insecurity. I really think it is a perversion of the welfare state at this point. Which can be hard to fully grasp for those that haven't experienced it.
    - Mirioron 8y ago
      That's the general argument against big government and even big business. It creates inefficiency because somebody else is spending the money that is removed from the current situation.
      - jampekka 8y ago
        No. It's an argument for stronger protection of labor against exploitation, often also called efficiency.
- rb808 8y ago
  I remember some big tech company had sabaticals available for everyone, but cancelled it because most people were just using them to train for a different job, so quit straight after.
- TheBeardKing 8y ago
  I wonder how such a policy isn't abused. Do you need to provide some kind of proof for your entrepreneurship? What's to stop me from just taking the occasional 6-month sabbatical to start a travel blog and travel the world? I'd love to be able to save up for 6 months of leave knowing I have a guaranteed job to come back to. Also, what sort of employer benefits are provided during these periods? I'm assuming Sweden has socialized medicine so employers aren't on the hook, but that'd be a major reason why it couldn't work in the US.
  - mxuribe 8y ago
    I would have to guess that there's probably some small amount of abuse...but aside from that, i think it is the fact that it is unpaid leave. I think if the leave were paid, there would be tons more abuse. To be sure, there's still risk in trying to go off on your own. Imagine that you hate your current job, have this chance, then take the chance...and then you fail spectacularly...Would you really feel good about going back to your crappy job? Maybe because i'm thinking through the mind of a sad American (sad because we lack many social safety nets such as this program)...but returning to a shitty job after failing big time doesn't sound like the nicest of feelings. Still, as much as America thinks that we're entrepreneurial, i sure wish we had this system.
dhh2106 8y ago
>For the last two decades, full-time workers with permanent jobs have had the right to take a six-month leave of absence to launch a company (or alternatively, to study or to look after a relative). These are unpaid leaves, right? I think it's a great idea, particularly for a business of a certain size. I know many of my peers leave their jobs because they are looking for an extended break. If they didn't have to leave, it could be a win for both employees and employers.
- petercooper 8y ago
  These are unpaid leaves, right? Yes.
adetrest 8y ago
Meanwhile, in the US and Canada, you are forced to sign clauses that gives your employer full ownership of anything you invent ever while employed and you have to ask your ~parents~ employer if you could please do something else on the side. Good for Sweden, these feodal rules are dragging everyone down.
- Kiro 8y ago
  > and you have to ask your ~~parents~~ employer if you could please do something else on the side What does this mean?
  - adetrest 8y ago
    It's meant to be struck out but HN doesn't do strikeout text. I meant that just as when you were in school and needed a hall pass or note from your parents to be absent, once you're an adult you need a formal authorization from your employer to work on anything else than your job during your employment even if it's on your own time.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      Surely this is down to the individual employer? Some companies try to add clauses like this to contracts here in the UK but thankfully they're generally not enforceable. Speaking as an employer, what my employees get up to in their own time is their business as long as they get their work done when they're supposed to.
      - maxsilver 8y ago
        > Surely this is down to the individual employer? In theory, yes, In practice, nearly every single US employer has this somewhere in their contract automatically by default -- the only way a company doesn't, is if someone explicitly got it removed. Also, in much of the US, the clause is enforceable, so companies have basically no incentive to remove it.
      - adetrest 8y ago
INTPenis 8y ago
I'm an anonymous coward on here so I can give another perspective. My employer struggles to find skilled people and when one guy on my team suddenly disappeared for 6 months it was definitely felt. Before that I hadn't really grasped the idea yet. Even though I've lived in Sweden since I was a child. I just couldn't accept that you can duck out of your job for several months and then come back as if nothing happened. I saw it as a sort of betrayal of your co-workers and duties. And when your employer is already struggling, quietly, to find competent personnel, it really felt like a kick in the gut to lose one of the most competent resources in that team. Of course that person came back and has always performed at a decent level. Now I'm older and more mature, I have my own company, so I'm much more accepting of the privilege to take a break from my employer to develop my own business. Unfortunately, and the article states this, there is an issue being in direct competition with your employer. Mine is a consultancy firm which means they do almost anything. They can purchase a solution from someone and re-sell it as their own. So it's very hard for me to start an IT business that does not compete with them. It's a sword of damocles dangling over me right now, because I haven't revealed to my manager what I'm doing in my own free time yet. All I know for sure is that I haven't signed any contract preventing me from running my own business and there is a clause in the collective bargaining contract that states that I can't use any company resources, which is obvious.
- Kiro 8y ago
  I did this and the alternative was me quitting the job completely. I don't think that would have been much better for the company.
  - LunaSea 8y ago
    It would because it means that the company has a guarantee of freed up resources to hire somebody else without having to wait the six months or so.
- JoelTheSuperior 8y ago
  To be fair, is this not at least partially the fault of the employer for not ensuring that they had adequate cover?
mrmekon 8y ago
Since maternity and paternity leave are frequently more than 6 months long, employees temporarily leaving for a big chunk of the year is just a fact of doing business here. Granting unpaid leave to go try your own thing for a while is, from the employer's perspective, not any different. Some people never come back, most people do. The same is true for parental leave (many quit their jobs towards the end of their leave, if they had already been thinking about it). Even when they aren't required to grant it, larger Swedish companies will often give you unpaid leave if you just ask. The fear is that otherwise you will quit. Hiring is hard here, so it's better to have a promise of someone coming back in 6 months than a job opening that can take 12 months to fill. Sweden has an enormous market of consultancies compared to the U.S. for filling these temporary gaps. Obviously consultants are expensive and not trained on your projects, so it's not the same as a long-time employee, but it gives options to "control the bleeding."
- maxsilver 8y ago
  > The fear is that otherwise you will quit. Hiring is hard here, so it's better to have a promise of someone coming back in 6 months than a job opening that can take 12 months to fill. This is what a strong economy actually looks like. It's hard (in my experience) to get Americans to understand this, because our economy here has been so bad for so long, most people here have never experienced anything like this.
  - CalRobert 8y ago
    It's like you need to grab Plato for a search and rescue mission to the cave.
  - lkrubner 8y ago
    Exactly. Male real wages have been stagnant since 1973, and that's without considering the situation around health care, where costs have risen much faster than general inflation. Counting health care, male real wages have declined noticeably since 1973. Meanwhile, returns to capital have grown dramatically. This is precisely what you would expect in a weak economy, where the workers necessarily lack bargaining power. In a strong economy, the percentage of national income going to workers would increase, as it did from 1935 to 1973.
ubermonkey 8y ago
This is a great idea, honestly, for the economy at large. If more people start more companies, we're probably all better off even if they don't all survive. If an American political party were TRULY pro-business and pro-entrepreneur, they'd get behind policies like this. They'd also support divorcing health care from employment, because holy COW how many folks would start a new venture IF ONLY they could afford private market insurance?
- merpnderp 8y ago
  The fact neither political party is for divorcing healthcare from employment goes to show how corrupted they are by the industry. This is such a slam dunk no brainer for improving not on the health care industry, but the quality of everyone's lives, the only reasonable explanation is corruption.
  - rayhendricks 8y ago
    This is exactly what Bernie Sanders is doing. He is independent but was running as a Democrat in the 2016 election primary. https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/ https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/
- devonkim 8y ago
  Milton Friedman was also a staunch supporter of social safety nets as well as free markets. Anyone that supports free markets and Friedman’s ideas should try to understand why he supported them together ardently. I consider myself both a supporter of actually free markets along with very generous safety nets for the non-winners of such an aggressive business climate. Otherwise, we quickly approach a literal meat grinder of humans and loss of human potential is unfortunate no matter what the economic system. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/business/23scene.html https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/business/23scene.html
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    But Negative Income Tax has actually been tried and it didn't produce quite the results that people were hoping for.
AltruisticGap 8y ago
In Belgium we have a "career break". 6 months, only condition is to be employed in the company for one year if I recall correctly. Employer can not refuse. You also get paid basic allocations similar to unemployment, unlike this system. You only get it once though.
mnm1 8y ago
What's wrong with the threat of starvation and homelessness as a motivator for innovation? Real innovators don't sleep, never take a day off, and work 26 hours a day. In America we know how to motivate people: threaten their livelihood by having virtually no safety net, no holidays, no health insurance, and no hope to go along with all of that. That's what drives real innovators, unlike these wussy European ones who can't even start a business without assurance that they'll have a job to go back to if it fails. Unnecessary crutches. We don't even have assurance a doctor will save your life if you get hit by a car on your way to work and they want reassurances about their job. Clearly their system is inferior. Our innovators work through pain. Repetitive stress injuries from typing and psychotic episodes from lack of sleep only make them stronger. This is what it takes to be number one in surveillance, ads, killing, and other shit no decent person wants to excel in. </s>
alltakendamned 8y ago
Can anyone tell me what this is called in Swedish ?
- moogly 8y ago
  Tjänstledighet

143 points by velik_m 8y ago

52-6F-62 8y ago

I think this is brilliant, but I’m interested to hear criticisms or arguments against it.

piker 8y ago
Even assuming there's a de minimis exemption for small businesses, one unintended consequence could be increasing employment costs which would negatively effect business formation by disproportionately favoring established entities that could afford the luxury.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  The article doesn't have details, really— but as the leave is unpaid I gather most of the costs would come in the form of any production delays or HR/admin. This makes me curious as to whether there are grants or subsidies from the government in support of the program.
AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
Well, the biggest argument against it will be a need to find and train a temporary replacement for the person. For many positions finding and training alone may take longer than that. And then what do you do with the replacement once the original guy is back? Overall though, I would agree that benefits overweight potential problems.
- thatguyagain 8y ago
  Some people can choose to work 50% instead of a 100% leave, so there are ways to solve it.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  I imagine the situation would be quite similar to how we handle maternity/paternity leave here in Canada, and it's rarely a problem. Once its an accepted pattern, there are fewer surprises, and most people are understanding.
  - Tor3 8y ago
    Exactly. It was briefly mentioned in the article too. Sweden already has a mature maternity/paternity system in place, and companies handle those just fine (in most cases, if they're doing any kind of planning and thinking). Thus they can handle these kinds of leaves as well - it's minor when you compare to the number of maternity/paternity leaves, there's much more of the latter. And (as it was mentioned in the article), it is possible to say 'no' to the leave if the employee's position is crucial (presumably there are definitions for what the actually means). Or hold it off for some time. Unlike with maternity/paternity leaves. I wish there was something like this in my country as well.
- rightbyte 8y ago
  The employeer should have a "replacement" ready anyway since people might also quit. Preparing for the pssobility of this or eg. paternity leave is a good anti-employee lock-in meassure for skilled workers. A possible argument against the system is that there are many temp working contracts to fill in for the fulltimers on leave.
dahart 8y ago
I think so too, I would love to have entrepreneur leave. Having quite my job to start a business before, the main thought in my head is that 6 months is not anywhere near long enough for the vast majority of business ideas to get off the ground, let alone succeed. In order to have any chance of success in 6 months, you would need to have launched your product before starting the 6 month period. You’d want to have secured financing, get any partners and/or employees in place, finish all legal paperwork, set up a payment system, build the product and begin marketing, all before you leave your day job. Any one of those things can easily eat more than 6 months. My startup was a 2 person software service -- just about the easiest thing you can do business wise -- and it took a year after quitting my job before we could even take money, and 2 years before we made enough money to pay our operational costs.
- elliekelly 8y ago
  > My startup was a 2 person software service -- just about the easiest thing you can do business wise This gave me a chuckle. To most people who aren't on HN a software service, no matter the size, is a major business undertaking. I have a friend who started a pilates studio. She loves pilates and the startup costs are minimal - a few thousand dollars total mostly for a small inventory of yoga pants and athleisure gear to sell. She quit her finance job to get it off the ground thinking it would take at least a year. It took her six weeks to have enough membership subscriptions to make her business profitable. She's a brilliant businesswoman and was working the front desk at a pilates studio and teaching a few classes. After three months she was understandably very bored. Her company still hadn't found a replacement for her so she hired a college kid to sit at the front desk and went right back to work. There are a lot of "analog" small businesses people could get off the ground in 6 months I just think they aren't the sort we're used to hearing about here because HN is so tech focused.
  - dahart 8y ago
    FWIW, the popular alternative to software I had in my mind is starting a restaurant. It's pretty hard to do that in 6 months and usually costs a lot more up front than software. You have a good point. My wife started teaching piano lessons after I quit my job, and her studio was at full capacity before my business was making any money. She's been at it for a while, but like your friend she's also experiencing a loss of motivation to continue doing it. You're right that single person & analog face-to-face services are very easy businesses to start. I have to wonder if those are the kind that Sweden is actually encouraging with their leave program. These kinds of businesses don't scale at all, there's a growth wall that most people never get over, even when they're among the few that survive the motivation problem. This is especially true when the business is initially launched as a personal service and needs very little planning or investment.
jampekka 8y ago
Overall I think it's a good thing, but one problem is that systems like these are really starting to create two tiers of workers, as is discussed in the end of the article. Generally one has to have a permanent contract for programs like these (e.g. in Finland you can go to study for two years and get paid a nice fraction of your pay from the unemployment fund). In theory this shouldn't be much of a problem because all jobs should be on permanent basis by default and fixed-term contracts should be only for very special purposes. In practice this is not enforced and especially for lower paying jobs (and some even higher educated fields, such as teachers or nurses) its quite common not to get permanent contracts at all. Because of this, there's almost a new social class of permanent contract workers who have great benefits and programs, and beneath them a constantly growing underclass on temp contracts, shitty working conditions and little benefits. It's sort of absurd that some paper pusher can get paid for doing any studies they wish more than a cleaner or store clerk gets paid while working. The systems were largely created before the neoliberal era started in Nordic countries in the 90's or so when employer protection was very strong across the board. But as the protection has crumbled for the "underclass", the system starts to at times look something like the olden privileges of the higher castes.
- tsacc 8y ago
  Essentially the same in Sweden. If you are well off you can enjoy many different systems and laws, from paid for private schools to secure employment and good benefits. While those young and worse off are facing cutbacks and insecurity. I really think it is a perversion of the welfare state at this point. Which can be hard to fully grasp for those that haven't experienced it.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    That's the general argument against big government and even big business. It creates inefficiency because somebody else is spending the money that is removed from the current situation.
    - jampekka 8y ago
      No. It's an argument for stronger protection of labor against exploitation, often also called efficiency.
rb808 8y ago
I remember some big tech company had sabaticals available for everyone, but cancelled it because most people were just using them to train for a different job, so quit straight after.
TheBeardKing 8y ago
I wonder how such a policy isn't abused. Do you need to provide some kind of proof for your entrepreneurship? What's to stop me from just taking the occasional 6-month sabbatical to start a travel blog and travel the world? I'd love to be able to save up for 6 months of leave knowing I have a guaranteed job to come back to. Also, what sort of employer benefits are provided during these periods? I'm assuming Sweden has socialized medicine so employers aren't on the hook, but that'd be a major reason why it couldn't work in the US.
- mxuribe 8y ago
  I would have to guess that there's probably some small amount of abuse...but aside from that, i think it is the fact that it is unpaid leave. I think if the leave were paid, there would be tons more abuse. To be sure, there's still risk in trying to go off on your own. Imagine that you hate your current job, have this chance, then take the chance...and then you fail spectacularly...Would you really feel good about going back to your crappy job? Maybe because i'm thinking through the mind of a sad American (sad because we lack many social safety nets such as this program)...but returning to a shitty job after failing big time doesn't sound like the nicest of feelings. Still, as much as America thinks that we're entrepreneurial, i sure wish we had this system.

dhh2106 8y ago

>For the last two decades, full-time workers with permanent jobs have had the right to take a six-month leave of absence to launch a company (or alternatively, to study or to look after a relative). These are unpaid leaves, right? I think it's a great idea, particularly for a business of a certain size. I know many of my peers leave their jobs because they are looking for an extended break. If they didn't have to leave, it could be a win for both employees and employers.

petercooper 8y ago
These are unpaid leaves, right? Yes.

adetrest 8y ago

Meanwhile, in the US and Canada, you are forced to sign clauses that gives your employer full ownership of anything you invent ever while employed and you have to ask your ~parents~ employer if you could please do something else on the side. Good for Sweden, these feodal rules are dragging everyone down.

Kiro 8y ago
> and you have to ask your ~~parents~~ employer if you could please do something else on the side What does this mean?
- adetrest 8y ago
  It's meant to be struck out but HN doesn't do strikeout text. I meant that just as when you were in school and needed a hall pass or note from your parents to be absent, once you're an adult you need a formal authorization from your employer to work on anything else than your job during your employment even if it's on your own time.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Surely this is down to the individual employer? Some companies try to add clauses like this to contracts here in the UK but thankfully they're generally not enforceable. Speaking as an employer, what my employees get up to in their own time is their business as long as they get their work done when they're supposed to.
    - maxsilver 8y ago
      > Surely this is down to the individual employer? In theory, yes, In practice, nearly every single US employer has this somewhere in their contract automatically by default -- the only way a company doesn't, is if someone explicitly got it removed. Also, in much of the US, the clause is enforceable, so companies have basically no incentive to remove it.
    - adetrest 8y ago

INTPenis 8y ago

I'm an anonymous coward on here so I can give another perspective. My employer struggles to find skilled people and when one guy on my team suddenly disappeared for 6 months it was definitely felt. Before that I hadn't really grasped the idea yet. Even though I've lived in Sweden since I was a child. I just couldn't accept that you can duck out of your job for several months and then come back as if nothing happened. I saw it as a sort of betrayal of your co-workers and duties. And when your employer is already struggling, quietly, to find competent personnel, it really felt like a kick in the gut to lose one of the most competent resources in that team. Of course that person came back and has always performed at a decent level. Now I'm older and more mature, I have my own company, so I'm much more accepting of the privilege to take a break from my employer to develop my own business. Unfortunately, and the article states this, there is an issue being in direct competition with your employer. Mine is a consultancy firm which means they do almost anything. They can purchase a solution from someone and re-sell it as their own. So it's very hard for me to start an IT business that does not compete with them. It's a sword of damocles dangling over me right now, because I haven't revealed to my manager what I'm doing in my own free time yet. All I know for sure is that I haven't signed any contract preventing me from running my own business and there is a clause in the collective bargaining contract that states that I can't use any company resources, which is obvious.

Kiro 8y ago
I did this and the alternative was me quitting the job completely. I don't think that would have been much better for the company.
- LunaSea 8y ago
  It would because it means that the company has a guarantee of freed up resources to hire somebody else without having to wait the six months or so.
JoelTheSuperior 8y ago
To be fair, is this not at least partially the fault of the employer for not ensuring that they had adequate cover?

mrmekon 8y ago

Since maternity and paternity leave are frequently more than 6 months long, employees temporarily leaving for a big chunk of the year is just a fact of doing business here. Granting unpaid leave to go try your own thing for a while is, from the employer's perspective, not any different. Some people never come back, most people do. The same is true for parental leave (many quit their jobs towards the end of their leave, if they had already been thinking about it). Even when they aren't required to grant it, larger Swedish companies will often give you unpaid leave if you just ask. The fear is that otherwise you will quit. Hiring is hard here, so it's better to have a promise of someone coming back in 6 months than a job opening that can take 12 months to fill. Sweden has an enormous market of consultancies compared to the U.S. for filling these temporary gaps. Obviously consultants are expensive and not trained on your projects, so it's not the same as a long-time employee, but it gives options to "control the bleeding."

maxsilver 8y ago
> The fear is that otherwise you will quit. Hiring is hard here, so it's better to have a promise of someone coming back in 6 months than a job opening that can take 12 months to fill. This is what a strong economy actually looks like. It's hard (in my experience) to get Americans to understand this, because our economy here has been so bad for so long, most people here have never experienced anything like this.
- CalRobert 8y ago
  It's like you need to grab Plato for a search and rescue mission to the cave.
- lkrubner 8y ago
  Exactly. Male real wages have been stagnant since 1973, and that's without considering the situation around health care, where costs have risen much faster than general inflation. Counting health care, male real wages have declined noticeably since 1973. Meanwhile, returns to capital have grown dramatically. This is precisely what you would expect in a weak economy, where the workers necessarily lack bargaining power. In a strong economy, the percentage of national income going to workers would increase, as it did from 1935 to 1973.

ubermonkey 8y ago

This is a great idea, honestly, for the economy at large. If more people start more companies, we're probably all better off even if they don't all survive. If an American political party were TRULY pro-business and pro-entrepreneur, they'd get behind policies like this. They'd also support divorcing health care from employment, because holy COW how many folks would start a new venture IF ONLY they could afford private market insurance?

merpnderp 8y ago
The fact neither political party is for divorcing healthcare from employment goes to show how corrupted they are by the industry. This is such a slam dunk no brainer for improving not on the health care industry, but the quality of everyone's lives, the only reasonable explanation is corruption.
- rayhendricks 8y ago
  This is exactly what Bernie Sanders is doing. He is independent but was running as a Democrat in the 2016 election primary. https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/ https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/
devonkim 8y ago
Milton Friedman was also a staunch supporter of social safety nets as well as free markets. Anyone that supports free markets and Friedman’s ideas should try to understand why he supported them together ardently. I consider myself both a supporter of actually free markets along with very generous safety nets for the non-winners of such an aggressive business climate. Otherwise, we quickly approach a literal meat grinder of humans and loss of human potential is unfortunate no matter what the economic system. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/business/23scene.html https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/business/23scene.html
- Mirioron 8y ago
  But Negative Income Tax has actually been tried and it didn't produce quite the results that people were hoping for.

AltruisticGap 8y ago

In Belgium we have a "career break". 6 months, only condition is to be employed in the company for one year if I recall correctly. Employer can not refuse. You also get paid basic allocations similar to unemployment, unlike this system. You only get it once though.

mnm1 8y ago

What's wrong with the threat of starvation and homelessness as a motivator for innovation? Real innovators don't sleep, never take a day off, and work 26 hours a day. In America we know how to motivate people: threaten their livelihood by having virtually no safety net, no holidays, no health insurance, and no hope to go along with all of that. That's what drives real innovators, unlike these wussy European ones who can't even start a business without assurance that they'll have a job to go back to if it fails. Unnecessary crutches. We don't even have assurance a doctor will save your life if you get hit by a car on your way to work and they want reassurances about their job. Clearly their system is inferior. Our innovators work through pain. Repetitive stress injuries from typing and psychotic episodes from lack of sleep only make them stronger. This is what it takes to be number one in surveillance, ads, killing, and other shit no decent person wants to excel in. </s>

alltakendamned 8y ago

Can anyone tell me what this is called in Swedish ?

moogly 8y ago
Tjänstledighet