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by sheraz 3598 days ago
You may be officially "at work" for that time in Sweden, but there are the countless fika breaks.

I believe Swedish law calls for a minimum 5 minutes break per hour? (Not mandatory but an entitlement)

2 comments

You are entitled to 5 minutes per hours for toilette breaks et.c. Most white collar jobs you just take your breaks whenever you feel you need them, and the fika is very important and in most places longer than the 20 minutes you accumulate in the morning or afternoon. In blue collar it is sometimes very different with a signal at 55 minutes every hour and then a signal 3 minutes later to signal that it is time to start moving back to your station and be ready for the signal at the hour. But I have worked as a construction worker where there was fika at least once every morning and afternoon.
but there are the countless fika breaks.

At every company in Sweden I've worked the number was exactly 2 @ 15 minutes each.

When I worked in manual labour (warehouses etc) that was certainly the case but in a white-collar job it is much less structured in my experience, we may have a formal fika once a week or just informal coffee breaks every now and then.

Fika IS important to productivity though! Morale boosting if nothing else.

Being Swedish, this sounds about right to me.