This paper aims to study, from a legal dogmatic method, the Swedish legislation on fixed-term work related to the EU directive 99/70/EC 1. In particular, the directives demand to prevent abuse of frequent temporary employment. An employer may, in agreement with the Swedish legislation combine different types of temporary employment, to prolong the time in the temporary employment. In this proceeding an employer can avoid employing an employee in a permanent position. For example, an employee can be employed in a probationary period of six months, in a general temporary employment for a maximum of 24 months, and thereafter in a temporary position for a maximum of 24 months before the employment turns into a permanent position. This provided that the employments were made by the same employer, and within five years. The EU Commission has requested Sweden to change its legislation in harmony with the fixed-term work directive requirements to prevent abuse of repetitive fixed-term contracts. Sweden now has two months to implement the Directive otherwise the Commission may bring an action against Sweden at the European Court of Justice. The Ministry of Employment and the TCO have presented a legislative draft on how the Swedish law should instead be designed. In 2012 there were 661,000 people with fixed-term contracts in Sweden, 288,000 of them were men and 373,000 were women. There are mostly women who have fixed-term employments. This may result in women being more vulnerable than men in terms of for example the economy. Fixed-term employments can cause difficulties in obtaining loans or gaining access to the housing market. For society, temporary jobs lead to higher costs compared to permanent employment. If fixed-term employments are increasing, it will lead to more short periods of unemployment and rising costs including unemployment insurance.

This essay aims to study the new regulation of the Swedish legislation regarding fixed-term work with a comparison to the EU directive 99/70/EC[1]. The essay also aims to study if the new legislation makes any difference for the individuals that has a fixed-term employment. The EU directive 99/70/EC is the legislation which shows how the member states in the EU are supposed to prevent employers from abusing frequent temporary employment and aims to protect the employees. Previously, an employer in Sweden could use the fixed-term contracts for temporary employments and just keep on giving the employee a temporary position in a spiral. In this way, the employer could avoid to give an employee a permanent employment and this makes for an unsafe future for the affected individual. In may 2016 Sweden, after criticism from the EU-commission, changed the Swedish legislation and aimed to stop the abusing of fixed-term contracts. Sweden wanted to try to keep the balance between the employer’s flexibility and the employee’s safety and this essay aims to investigate to what extent the change fulfills the purpose. [1] Council Directive 1999/70/EC of 28 June 1999 concerning the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by ETUC, UNICE and CEEP. Later know as the EU directive 99/70/EC.