The Swedish Work Environment Authority was formed in 2001, through the amalgamation of the ten districts of the Labour Inspectorate and the National Board of Occupational Safety and Health. 

The Authority’s paramount objective is to reduce the risks of ill-health and accidents in the workplace and to improve the work environment in a holistic perspective, i.e. from the physical, mental, social and organisational viewpoints. 

The Authority is tasked with ensuring compliance with work environment and working hours legislation and also, in certain respects, with the Tobacco Act and the Environmental Code with regard to certain issues relating to genetic engineering and pesticides. The Authority is also required to furnish advice, respond to inquiries and publish information. The Authority has a Lay Board consisting of the Authority’s Director-General, who is ex officio chairman, and six other members. Meetings of the Lay Board are also attended by two employee representatives. The meetings are preceded by informal meetings together with representatives of the labour market parties.

The EU has issued a Directive designed to ensure that a worker usually employed in another country but working in Sweden for a limited period (as a “posted worker”) will have the same terms and conditions of employment as Swedish workers. The Work Environment Authority is Sweden’s “liaison office” in this connection, and as such tasked with supplying information about the terms and conditions of employment applying in connection with postings to Sweden.

Read more about posting of workers   

In emergencies, call +46-(0)8-454 2012.

Regulatory activities

The basic enactment for the work environment sector is the Work Environment Act, applicable to all areas of working life. Out of Sweden’s almost 9 million inhabitants, approximately 5,3 million come under this Act. SWEA has been tasked by the Government with supplementing and articulating the stipulations of the Work Environment Act, as well as with attending to the transposition of EU legislation in our field into Swedish law. To this end, we issue regulatory amendments and new rules for the working environment. Today there are some 130 Provisions relating to technical, chemical, organizational and psychosocial factors. New Provisions are published in the Statute Book of the Swedish Work Environment Authority (AFS).