Temporary membership fee increase
The Executive Council of the Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers has on the 2 june 2020 decided on a temporary increase of the membership fee. This is in order to secure the financing of the income insurance scheme at a time when unemployment is expected to rise significantly. We have already seen a significant increase of applications to the income insurance among our members during the last months. The whole of the increase will be earmarked for the income insurance.
On June 2, the Executive Council confirmed that the amount of the temporary increase.
How will this affect your fee?
- Professional members who pay the full membership fee will pay SEK 100 per month extra.
- Professional members who pay a reduced membership fee will pay SEK 30 per month extra.
- Student members, professional members over the age of 65 and retired members will not be affected by this temporary increase.
- The increase will be enforced from July 1st 2020 and last at the longest until December 31st 2021.
At a time when larger numbers of engineers are being made unemployed than is usual, it is vital that we can continue to keep our promises to our members. Everyone should feel safe in the knowledge that together we support those members who become unemployed and need to use our income insurance.
Chair of Sveriges Ingenjörer, the Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers
Why do we need to do this?
At a time when we see that unemployment among our members is rising more than anyone could have predicted a year ago, we have been forced to implement this measure to ensure that our income insurance continues to provide the promised level of support and security. Unfortunately, we need to prepare for a situation in which many engineers, a professional group where unemployment has traditionally been very low, face redundancy and unemployment. As a result of this situation, there is a danger that the income insurance capital will not be sufficient to cover its obligations. Before the pandemic, the income insurance premium was calculated on an assumed unemployment rate of 0.8%, but our current forecast is that it will need to provide support for up to 3.8% of our members.
We have put together a summary of the most common questions and answers regarding the temporary increase in membership fees here.