Positive message from the government and the co-operation parties about the assistance allowance
The Swedish government proposes in its budget bill, with the support of the co-operation parties, Centerpartiet and Liberalerna, the allowance for personal assistance to be increased by 3.5 per cent in 2021. The information, which was published on Sunday afternoon, is positive for everyone with personal assistance as well as for Humana and all providers.
"This is very good and long-awaited news for Humana's assistance customers, for our employees and for us as a provider of personal assistance. Together with many others, we have for a long time worked hard to point out the unreasonableness of the fact that the increases in the assistance allowance for many years have not compensated for the development of the costs. We are very happy that the government now has listened", says Andreas Westlund, Business area manager Personal assistance at Humana.
The standard allowance for personal assistance is proposed to be set at SEK 315 per hour for 2021 and the proposed increase in the allowance is thereby the largest in several years. Since 2014, the mark-up on the standard allowance each year has been lower than the collectively agreed salary increases. This has led to negative pressure on the assistance sector.
There has been a clear consensus between the disability movement, the union and all providers of personal assistance that the increase of the standard allowance has been too low in recent years and that the annual adjustments needs to better compensate for cost increases.
“We hope that the message is also a trend break that means a turnaround for personal assistance in more ways. We know that there are many people who should be entitled to personal assistance but who do not receive it today. Humana is ready to offer assistance to more people", says Andreas Westlund.
The financial impact for Humana of the proposed increase in the standard allowance is positive as revenues increase, but the impact on profits is due to several factors and it is too early to make an analysis of today. Humana's initial assessment is that the proposed increase of the standard allowance is at least sufficient to counteract the negative marginal pressure that the industry has experienced in recent years.
This information is information that Humana AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the care of the contact persons below, on 14 September at 13:00 CET.
For more information, please contact:
Anna Sönne, Head of Investor Relations, + 46 70 601 48 53, anna.sonne@humana.se
Noora Jayasekara, CFO, + 46 70 318 92 97, noora.jayasekara@humana.se
Humana is a leading Nordic care company providing services within individual and family care, personal assistance, elderly care and special service housing in accordance with LSS. Humana has 15,000 employees in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark providing care for 9,000 individuals and working to achieve the vision “Everyone is entitled to a good life”. In 2019, Humana’s operating revenue was SEK 7,467m. Humana is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm and the company’s headquarters are located in Stockholm. Read more about Humana on: www.humana.se or corporate.humana.se/en