Sweden gives employees unpaid time off to be entrepreneurs (2019)
&lt;rant&gt;<p>As a Swedish entrepreneur with 2 exits under my belt and a startup in progress, nothing boils my blood more than bullshit like this. You want to encourage entrepreneurs? stop making up bullshit laws and initiatives that does nothing but fuck us over every single day.<p>Initiatives like this have the exact opposite effect of how they´re advertised as I´ve personally experienced first hand. Yet somehow all you read about is the outgoing PR of how great this place is, when in fact it is a god awful place to conduct business in. Heck just living here is becoming a nightmare as of late.<p>It´s time to move on from this shit hole to somewhere more welcoming. Too bad the US immigration system is a clusterfuck regardless of how much money you´re willing to throw at it.<p>&lt;&#x2F;rant&gt;<p>As requested here is an example:
Lets take the &quot;Right to Leave to Conduct a Business Operation Act&quot; or &quot;maternity leave&quot;. In both of cases if you work at an early stage startup and exercise your right to take a leave (paid or otherwise), I as an employer have to hold on to that position for the duration of the entire leave of absence. In the case of maternity leave (~1.5 year of paid leave) for instance, I have to hold that position open for you as an employee. The last startup I was involved in had a female employee that was there for about 6 months and then left work for ages before returning, and then &quot;somehow&quot; in an &quot;unplanned manner&quot; managed to quit a few weeks after. Zero work experience, have to hold the spot open for her, have to hire expensive replacement consultants for the duration of the leave which could be extended at any point and I am also obligated to provide benefits to the workers that come in as temporary replacement at a higher cost???? All of that without having the right to fire or suspend said person.<p>Imagine being 1 out of 6 employees and you just vanish, leaving behind everything for the company to pick up by having to hire a secondary person as a consultant for far more money, giving them those same benefits while keeping your position open. Startups cannot afford these costs period. Not every startup enjoys the millions of SV dollars. Our bootstrapped startup almost went under because of employee benefit payments for people who were not even showing up to work and we cannot fire by law.<p>This is beyond sinister and it isnt done to protect employees, it is merely done to extract the maximum amount of value from companies at all stages so that the state can afford to deliver on its never-ending promises of &quot;FREE EVERYTHING&quot;.<p>One of my best friends have had a full salary for the last 5 years and have not worked a single day. Who pays for that do you reckon? and in what world is that fair to the rest of us?