Anyone who has become unemployed and seeks compensation from the unemployment insurance fund must in most cases wait between 4-6 weeks before the money is paid out. But funds that cover industries that have been hit hard by the corona pandemic have longer waiting times than that. This can take several months.

- The waiting times are long in some places, but in general they are under control, at most unemployment funds. That they are still long in some places and that there is a lot of pressure is an outcome of the enormous effect that the corona pandemic has had on the labor market, says Tomas Eriksson, head of the Chancellery at Sweden's unemployment insurance funds.

Three months wait

Alfakassan, which is aimed at the entire labor market and also at people who are not members of the unemployment insurance fund, has a fifteen-week waiting period. SVT Nyheter Örebro has reported on 29-year-old Simon, who is waiting for compensation from that particular fund.

- The latest official statistics show that they have about that waiting time, of about three months, so there are more in his situation, says Tomas Eriksson.

Today, there are around 160,000 benefit recipients at the unemployment insurance funds in Sweden every month, compared with around 90,000 last year.