Because shit like that is generally against the law in countries that care about workers rights. It's utterly transparent and anyone can see through it. It's the same reasons Uber aren't allowed in many European countries - at least not in the way they are in the US. You can't just claim that the people that are effectively your employees are simply contractors.
How does this violate the law? Could you point me to any European country with laws prohibiting this?
> You can't just claim that the people that are effectively your employees are simply contractors.
No, they are the employees of my subsidiary. They are entitled to all of the protections of labour law, including all the maternity leave and all that. If the subsidiary goes out of business, too bad. That's what they're for.
If this actually was a functioning way of handling the situation, every single company would be structured this way. Worker protection laws are a huge pain for employers in Sweden, so they wouldn't hesitate a second if they could work around them through such a loophole.
Calling for us to point to a certain paragraph of a certain law is not really fair, because we're generally not lawyers here. Can you instead explain why all companies are not structured the way you suggest. Because all managers are idiots, or because they've realized that it's not legally sound?
Because it's bad PR, and because few people bother to be bold enough to innovate. Sweden, like most of Europe, is a country of conformism. There is very little innovation being conducted there, just like with the Chinese.
In America, people have a long and proud tradition of coming up with Byzantine workarounds for laws. In Europe, not so much.
I can't prove a negative, but you can prove a positive.
Either this isn’t happening because people wouldn’t accept that form of employment, or it isn’t happening because it’s too cumbersome or the cost of it cancels the gain. Or it isn’t happening because the laws are successful in preventing it. Who knows - either way it’s not happening.
The only gain is that you can employ a new full time employee instead of hiring a temp while waiting for the person on leave to come back. It's a minor gain compared to the hassle/risk of trying to circumvent a law anyway.
Have a main company that does stuff, which hires subcontractor subsidiaries. They have one employee each.
Then, when she took maternal leave, you could just have liquidated the subcontractor - problem solved.