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

bbc.com

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

#71

Post by rightbyte »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #5
52-6F-62 wrote: post #2

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

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.

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.

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

#72

Post by ep103 »

Jerry2 wrote: post #65
CalRobert wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, in 1973, there was a good chance you had a partner who could stay at home to watch the kid(s). Now you have both people working whether you like it or not, because you're competing with two-income households for housing. Of course, not trapping women in domestic servitude is a good thing, but making it (on average) necessary for two people to work to afford a home when before it took one is a bad thing.

> Of course, not trapping women in domestic servitude is a good thing Alternative is 'trapping them' (horrible choice of words btw) into corporate servitude. Which of the two is better? Which of the two is better for children?

Which of the two is better?

trapping in corporate. Trapping in corporate grants economic independence.

Which means, depending on the family situation, it may be better for the children... it means the woman has the ability to run away if she needs to.

Not saying its a perfect system, or that it should be a binary choice (it shouldn't be), but of the binary choice, one is blatantly better.

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

#73

Post by TheBeardKing »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #2

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

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.

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

#75

Post by robin_reala »

2019ideas wrote: post #22
adetrest wrote: post #6

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.

>you are forced to sign clauses that gives your employer full ownership of anything you invent ever while employed You know, you don't have to sign those. I always cross out those and tell them to send it back when its fixed. Only my first job I was afraid to do this.

My (Swedish) company tried this. I got it crossed out after I pointed out that that meant they also had legal responsibility for anything I produce out of work hours.

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

#76

Post by mav3rick »

JoelTheSuperior wrote: post #20
INTPenis wrote: post #8

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.…

To be fair, is this not at least partially the fault of the employer for not ensuring that they had adequate cover?

Not every small business has that luxury.

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

#77

Post by alkibiades »

JoelTheSuperior wrote: post #20
INTPenis wrote: post #8

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.…

To be fair, is this not at least partially the fault of the employer for not ensuring that they had adequate cover?

sure but what you’re effectively doing is making an employer hire more people than otherwise so they can have adequate cover. you may say this just the cost of doing business. But in the aggregate it results in X percent of companies that were previously neutral or making a profit into going out of business or being in the negative.

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

#78

Post by rchaud »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #69
lkrubner wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a weak economy if you're a laborer and not a capitalist. Overall, it's still been a VERY strong economy since '73. The US has been either first or second in GDP growth EVERY YEAR FOR 40 years! China has been killing it recently, but over the given time period, the US is still by far the best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_growt... A real weak economy would look like Japan, Ukraine, Ru…

> This is a weak economy if you're a laborer and not a capitalist.

Replace capitalist with monopolist and I'd agree.

How many capitalists make losses for 20 years and not only stay in their job, but actually become the world's richest person? Where would Uber be if they couldn't use VC money to undercut taxi companies, and subsidize hundreds of millions in losses. And let's not even get started on the issue of offshore tax avoidance, something your local hardware store will never have access to.

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

#80

Post by khjo »

INTPenis wrote: post #8

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.…

Actually you might be in trouble and the longer you keep it secret the more trouble you will be in.

In Sweden you have a duty to be loyal to your employer, which means you are not allowed to plan and/or start a competing business during your employment. Your employer can sue you for violating your loyalty to your employer.

However this also means that you have to be able to define what your employers area of business is. Either you don't know it or they don't have one. Get their area of business defined.

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