Rehabilitation in Swedish industry—An industrial economic analysis

Abstract

This article presents a framework for calculating the industrial profitability associated with the decision to rehabilitate an employee who is absent due to illness. Practical aspects of the framework are exemplified in a case study from a Swedish engineering company. The case study indicates that the frequent, short-term absence is usually profitable to eliminate through rehabilitation actions. Rehabilitation concerning long-term sick employees was revealed to be difficult to justify if the worker does not regain almost full working ability after the rehabilitation. On the other hand, it is not difficult to find a number of good social economic reasons to rehabilitate a person so that he or she can continue a career. The indirect connection between sick leave exceeding 14 days and the social insurance contributions, in the Swedish system, seems to lower the incentives for the company to rehabilitate long-term absent personnel. The outcome of the calculation where the company also paid sickness benefits after the 14 days of absence showed incentives for the company to rehabilitate employees with working capacity so low that only ethical reasons exist today for rehabilitation. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.