| Yes, it's an employer-paid pension that is very similar to the U.S. 401(K). Depending on how you slice it, Swedish pensions are divided into 3 or 4 layers: 1) Income pension - equivalent to U.S. social security. Taken out of everyone's taxes, and you have no control over it. 2) Premium pension - it's considered part of Income pension (1), but when you earn above some amount it goes into this bucket and you can tell the government a bit about how you want it to be invested. 3) Occupational pension (tjänstepension) - An "optional" employer-paid pension that you have some direct control over. Depending on the management company, you can either choose between a few fixed investment schemes, or you can have full control over it and invest in stocks/mutual funds. It is "optional", but mandated by the unions, so not really optional. 4) Private pension - your own personal account, like an IRA There were a bunch of deportations over tjänstepension problems. Companies that were not in unions paid employees that were not in unions and didn't offer the same tjänstepension as the union agreement. Migrationsverket decided (also in 2015) that the exact terms of the union agreements are required for all non-EU citizens, even if they aren't involved with the unions. (If you are Swedish or from the EU, there is no legal requirement.) I got in trouble because the union requires a 4.5% tjänstepension contribution from your employer. My employer paid 8% to mine, but it was structured in a different way... which we later found out was unacceptable. |