Poor conditions for nail salon workers

The growing popularity of treatments such as fish pedicures for example has led to more and more nail salons opening up, and they are all competing to offer the lowest price. While this may be great news for nail enthusiasts, it is not all great for some nail salon therapists.

The nail industry in Sweden has gone from hairdresser's salons hiring an in-house nail therapist, to the opening of large salons offering all kinds of treatments.

Amid all this growth, Seyf and Sansa, the two largest nail and cosmetic industry organisations, are now concerned about nail therapists' low salaries.

A large percentage of employees at nail salons in the capital of Stockholm come from Vietnam and Thailand, and have increased in numbers recently. Swedish Radio reports that they arrive motivated by promises of a good job with a decent salary. But the reality they find in Sweden is often not what they expected.

Dung Dang runs the salon chain Queennails in the Stockholm suburb of Sollentuna, and in Uppsala. He told Swedish Radio he pays his employees between 12 000 and 18 000 kronor a month for full time work, an income range which is just below the minimum wage in Sweden.

And the high price of rent in the capital city makes it hard for Dang's employees to find accomodation.

Dang currently shares the four room apartment where he lives with his wife and two grown children, with three employees.

"It's very hard to find somewhere to live in Stockholm, but they can stay with me for now", he told Swedish Radio.

Apart from low wages for employees, there's also concern that nail salons import illegal chemicals that are used in the nail therapies. While these chemicals are cheaper than the approved ones, they can cause health damage such as allergies and asthma to the nail therapists who use them. It is an issue that has earned the Swedish nail industry much criticism from the Work Environment Authority.

The cosmetic industry organization Seyf claims that employees are often not informed of the risks of the chemicals, nor of the proper way to use them.

All this, Maria Sundberg from Seyf told Swedish Radio, is for the sake of keeping costs low.

"They want to get the customers in as quickly as possible, and out as quickly as possible. This means the working conditions for nail therapists won't be particularly good", she said.