Please understand that this is not me bashing Sweden at all, I am just a bit surprised that compensation packages aren’t that great in Sweden and I would like to understand how compensation packages in other countries are seen at. I worked in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany and due to my work I know what the packages look like in France, Ireland, Spain and Italy (our headquarters is located in Belgium).
I am from the Netherlands and companies offer additional benefits such as:
- Company cars (very cheap, you pay 100-500 euro per month and it includes private gas/electricity, private parking and all other costs associated with owning cars as well). I know this is limited by Swedish law (you even have to pay for switching the tyres even though this is mandatory…) For example, I drove a Tesla Model S for 180 euro per month and had 0 private costs for this, even when driving the car through Europe.
- By law it is possible to work part-time. A lot of people work 32-36 hours per week. Several governmental organisations even have 36 hours as the maximum hours per week. In Sweden just 40 hours seems the norm.
- 4-12 vacation weeks. Let’s say you have 24 days off per year and you start working in August, you can already take 2 days off in September without any debt as supposed to how it’s working in Sweden (what is up with the strange vacation days thing where you earn them between April and March???).
- Good budgets for education purposes, especialy people with a ‘higher education job’ have between 2500 and 5000 euro per year. I know multiple people who did a masters while working, getting paid time off to study
- Much more team building activities, ski trips and free food (again, this is limited by the Swedish government). When I was living in the Netherlands, I was invited to company and supplier/customer dinners almost every month, and I didn’t have to pay tax for it as it is in Sweden (my former colleagues are laughing when I tell them I need to pay tax on food when I am working late…)
- A 13th or even 14th month of salary
- Getting 100% of your salary when you are sick for a few days. If you are sick for a longer period (for instance a burnout), you get 70-80% but in most cases you get 100% of your salary, meaning there is not obstacle to calling sick
How is this seen in Sweden? I know a lot of people really like unions, but they want to achieve what already is the standard in some other countries in Europe. Is this one of the reasons why it is hard to find higher educated staff (something a lot of entrepeneurs within my network have issues with)? They just get much more salary in other countries and simply move over there.
I really like the working atmosphere here in Sweden, but when it comes to total compensation packages, it is very, very low, especially compared with the costs of living in Sweden. I have a good base salary, but without the additional benefits, at the end of the year I have less more to spend and save, even though my salary is 25% higher than when I moved here from the Netherlands.
Again, I don’t want to insult anything or anybody and I understand there are big differences, but when comparing the average salaries and compensations in Sweden to aruond 7 other European countries, it feels like Sweden stayed in the 90’s and all other countries innovated.
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The original was posted on /r/sweden by /u/ObservationalWizard at 2023-08-07 10:29:13+00:00.
HashMapsData2Value at 2023-08-07 13:49:16+00:00 ID:
jv5la44What I’m curious about is if other countries also have semestertillägg.
Scandiblockhead at 2023-08-07 13:11:42+00:00 ID:
jv5lzs6Yeah! And as I’m currently pregnant the parental benefits are interesting as well. It’s horrible to hear about other countries were parents have to leave their child very early on or quit their jobs to care for them :(
Jolly-Dentist2836 at 2023-08-07 16:41:49+00:00 ID:
jv6h182That is only in very competitive countries that fare well. Romania has 2 years of paid parental leave. Hungary invests heavily in making babies. And that’s just the poor cousins on Europe. Sweden’s parental leave will be left the same because a lot of immigrants give the country a ton of children to occupy the low wage jobs. I mean a ton by western standards. Natality in Sweden is superior to any developed country and even many of the underdeveloped ones.
takeitchillish at 2023-08-07 14:41:49+00:00 ID:
jv5ycm2I think it is a bit horrible in Sweden where people put their children from 1 years old for long hours in kindergartens. Some childen cannot even walk when they start kindergarten in sweden, that is fucked up. A child should be home to at least 2 years of age.
AndreDaGiant at 2023-08-07 14:05:03+00:00 ID:
jv5t217I know they have it in Belgium. Think they have it in Germany also.
336691 at 2023-08-07 14:14:01+00:00 ID:
jv5ubg4The semestertillägg is so minuscule that it almost feels useless to take into consideration when comparing across countries (which will have multiple minor positive/negative quirks affecting the compensation package). In practice it corresponds to what, a 1% yearly salary increase? A company’s policy on how gap days are treated probably even have a larger impact than the measly semestertillägg, let alone actual salary differences
PsychonautChronicles at 2023-08-07 16:00:28+00:00 ID:
jv6ahejThe most interesting part is that the unions, employers and legislators all seem to agree that people in general are too stupid to save up for their vacations themselves so you need to withhold a small part of their salary for them not to go broke during the holidays.
Ok_Excuse_30 at 2023-08-07 17:39:48+00:00 ID:
jv6qcl8Well, that’s because they are too stupid.
Aromatic-Zebra-8270 at 2023-08-07 16:33:17+00:00 ID:
jv6fnukDenmark and UK (both personal experience) for sure most EU countries have either paid vacation or option of payment in lieu of non-taken days