Can't come to work, gone fishin.
Posted on 09/17/2004 3:29:47 PM PDT by mjp
STOCKHOLM: Swedish welfare authorities plan to launch a campaign to educate Swedes about when they can take sick leave, after a study showed 40 per cent believe it is enough to feel tired to stay home and draw benefits.
"Our mistake could be that, in some misdirected benevolence, we were not clear enough on where the limits are," the National Social Insurance Board's head Anna Hedborg wrote in a column for the Dagens Nyheter daily.
Sweden, famous for its generous welfare policies, has seen sick leave absenteeism double over the last two years to 800,000, or one fifth of the workforce, by late 2003.
The benefits cost 87 billion crowns ($NZ17.83 billion) or 15 per cent of spending. Combined with a drop in tax income caused by economic slowdown last year, it pushed central government finances into a deficit for the first time in five years.
A survey of 1002 Swedes by the board also showed 65 per cent believed they could go on sick leave if they felt stressed at work and 41 per cent thought a conflict with their boss or workmates was a good enough reason.
One fifth thought a strike at the childcare centre also made them eligible for the benefits and 71 per cent said family problems entitled them always or sometimes to sick leave. "People should really know sick leave is linked to sickness and. .. nothing else," Hedborg wrote.
Lazy bums.
I'd try to say something witty, but I'm too damned lazy.
Rewarding slothful laziness begets more slothful laziness.
Nam Vet
I think it's "ikea". Or does that mean "cheap crap"? I can't recall.
If this is so, I would guess that a lot of people are out sick on Fridays and Mondays.
LOL...thanks. Maybe we can ask Te-Ray-Za
Ping to the Swedish Ping List.
:^)
Thats it for me....I'm switching to the party "For The People!"
LVM
I'm a state employee and I was sick today!
well, for crying out loud! What do they expect from socialist policies! You do not breed eager competitive nature in a welfare state! That is why they are they and we are we! And they would like to transform us? I don't think so!!!
Can't come to work, gone fishin.
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