Country tires of tired workers taking sick leave

Swedish welfare authorities plan to launch a campaign to educate Swedes about when they can take sick leave, after a study showed 40 percent 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 ($11.63 billion) or 15 percent 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 1,002 Swedes by the board also showed 65 percent believed they could go on sick leave if they felt stressed at work and 41 percent thought a conflict with their boss or workmates was a good enough reason.

One fifth thought a strike at the child care center also made them eligible for the benefits and 71 percent 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.

--Reuters