What If Getting Laid Off Wasn't Something to Be Afraid Of?

NORRKÖPING, Sweden—When Beate Autrum first heard that she and hundreds of other employees were getting laid off from the Whirlpool factory where she worked, she was terrified. Autrum, a single mother, had uprooted her whole life to move to Sweden from Germany to work for Whirlpool, and she worried about her immigration status, how she would support her daughter, and whether she’d find a new job again. It was 2014, a tough time to lose a job in this industrial Swedish town, as other companies such as Vitamix and Seco Tools were also laying people off. But minutes after she heard the news about the layoffs, Autrum began hearing something else from colleagues and bosses: Don’t worry, TRR will help you.

TRR, which stands for Trygghetsrådet, is what’s known as a job-security council—a private organization unique to Sweden that helps laid-off workers. Employers pay into these job-security councils, and if they lay employees off, those workers receive financial support and job counseling from the council to help get them back into the workforce as soon as possible. Autrum, for instance, was immediately given a personal counselor, who administered a Myers-Briggs personality test, edited her resume, and helped her figure out what types of jobs she could move onto next. She was offered funds to take