Employment 2025

SWEDEN Law and Practice Contributed by: Robert Stromberg, Advokatfirman Cederquist KB

all grounds attributable to the employee, such as the employee’s conduct or performance. An overall assessment of all the factors involved must be made when determining whether there are objec - tive reasons for dismissal. A dismissal with notice will never be considered as being based on objective reasons if there were other alternatives available to the employer, such as relocating the employee else - where within the business. Therefore, an employer must investigate whether there are any vacant posi - tions within their business that the employee can be offered before a notice of termination is given. Dismissal Procedure The procedure for dismissing employees varies to some extent, depending on whether the dismissal is due to redundancy or personal reasons. The pro - cedural requirements to follow are laid down in the Employment Protection Act. Prior to terminating an employment agreement due to redundancy, the employer may be obliged to conduct consultations under the Co-Determination Act if a CBA binds the employer or if the employee is a member of a trade union. The basic principle to be applied when the labour force has to be made redundant is that the employee with the longest aggregate period of employment with the company should be entitled to stay the longest: the employer must select those to be laid off on a “last in, first out” basis. A condition for continued employ - ment is that the employee has sufficient qualifications for one of the available positions that may be offered. Before terminating an employment agreement on per - sonal grounds, the employer must notify the employee concerned in writing and the trade union, if the employ - ee is a trade union member, two weeks in advance. If an employer wants to dismiss an employee without notice summarily, the information must be given one week before the actual dismissal. The employee or the trade union may request consultations with the employer concerning the dismissal, within one week of receiving the information. The employer must observe certain formal rules set out in the Employment Protection Act when serving

a notice of termination to an employee. Notices shall always be made in writing and must state the pro - cedure to be followed by the employee if they wish to claim that the notice of termination is invalid or to claim damages as a consequence of the termina - tion. The notice shall also state whether or not the employee enjoys rights of priority for re-employment. Several statutes contain limitation periods for bringing employment claims, including the Co-Determination Act, the Annual Leave Act and the Employment Pro - tection Act. Furthermore, the Limitations Act stipu - lates limitation periods for salary and pension claims. Dismissal of Multiple Employees In Sweden, there is no principal difference between a termination due to redundancy involving one employ - ee or such a termination involving 150 employees; hence, the Co-Determination Act does not recog - nise the term “collective redundancies”. In contrast to many other European countries, where the obliga - tion to consult collectively is triggered only if there are several redundancies, the provisions on obligations to consult according to the Co-Determination Act are applicable even if the redundancy concerns only one employee (please see the outline for termination due to redundancy described above). If more than five employees are subject to a redundan - cy situation and their employment is being terminated, the employer is obliged to notify the Swedish Employ - ment Agency a certain period in advance, depending on how many employees are being terminated. This also applies if the total number of notices of termina - tion is expected to be 20 or more during 90 days. Fail - ure to observe this notification obligation may result in a liability to pay a special fee to the state. 7.2 Notice Periods Statutory notice periods from the employer’s side vary between one and six months, depending on the length of the employment term, as follows: • one month if the length of the employment term is less than two years; • two months if the length of the employment term is at least two years but less than four years; • three months if the length of the employment term is at least four years but less than six years;

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