Tag Archive: Society

Switzerland sees surge in numbers of foreign workers

2023-02-18

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2023-02-18

The number of new foreign workers moving to Switzerland on long-term contracts increased by a quarter last year compared to 2021, according to official statistics.

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Swiss jobless rate sinks as unions demand more pay

2023-01-10

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2023-01-10

The rate of unemployment in Switzerland fell to 2.2% last year, the lowest rate in 20 years, according to official statistics. At the same time, trade unions complained that wages were too low for many workers and demanded more pay. On Monday, the State Secretariat for Economic affairs (Seco) said the jobless rate fell from 3% in 2021 to 2.2% last year.

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Swiss pensioners to be compensated for inflation

2022-09-29

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2022-09-29

Pensions in Switzerland should in future be topped up to fully account for the rising cost of consumer goods, parliament has agreed.

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Coronavirus: Why staying home is merely a recommendation in Switzerland

2020-03-29

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2020-03-29

Readers of swissinfo.ch have many questions about the way the Swiss are handling the pandemic. In this first collection of answers, we tackle social distancing measures and how the population is taking them onboard. Switzerland has progressively tightened measures aimed at limiting the spread of Covid-19 across the country.

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Swiss worry about online data protection, want increased regulation

2020-02-16

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2020-02-16

A survey on digitalisation released this week shows people’s greatest concern revolves around the fate of their personal data, though just as many believe new technologies hold great promise, especially in the areas of medicine, education and smart cities

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Welfare payments in 2018 averaged CHF10,379 per person

2020-02-13

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2020-02-13

Net expenditure on social assistance in Switzerland increased by 1.3% in 2018 compared with the previous year. The government, cantons and municipalities paid out a total of CHF8.4 billion ($8.6 billion). Each recipient of social assistance received an average of CHF10,379, the Federal Statistical Office said in a statement on Tuesday. This is an increase of 2.4% on 2017.

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Poverty in Switzerland rises 10 percent in a year 

2019-12-19

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2019-12-19

Although Switzerland is rich, poverty within the country continues to rise, says a report released on Tuesday. Poverty affected 675,000 people including 100,000 children in 2017, a 10% increase on the previous year, according to the report (in French) by the non-governmental organisation Caritas.

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Switzerland excels at attracting talent, but can do better

2019-11-20

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2019-11-20

For the sixth consecutive year, Switzerland clinched the top spot in the annual global ranking of the Lausanne-based IMD business school. The 2019 edition of the IMD World Talent Ranking ranked Switzerland highly in the three areas assessed. It came first in appeal, second in investment and development and second in readiness. Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Luxembourg rounded out the top five.

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Billionaires’ club shrinks as economy wobbles

2019-11-12

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2019-11-12

The world lost 57 billionaires last year as economic woes and the unexpected strengthening of the US dollar wiped $388 billion (CHF386 billion) from their combined wealth. Switzerland had three fewer billionaires; the 33 who remain saw their bank accounts shrink by $16 billion.

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Big firms required to publish gender pay gap in 2021

2019-08-22

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2019-08-22

Large companies in Switzerland will have to analyse wages of men and women starting in 2020 and make the audited results available to staff in 2021. The Federal Council agreed on Wednesday that the equal pay revision to the Gender Equality Act, passed by parliament in December 2018, will come into force on July 1, 2020.

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Nine out of ten Swiss are satisfied with their job

2019-08-21

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2019-08-21

The vast majority of Swiss people enjoy going to work. In a survey by consultants EY, 87% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their job. Although the figure has barely changed since last year, differences between sectors persist. In the construction industry and in mechanical and systems engineering, for example, satisfaction has increased significantly.

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Half a million Swiss jobs vacancies predicted in 10 years

2019-07-13

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2019-07-13

Retiring baby-boomers and a shifting job market could mean a shortfall of up to 500,000 workers in Switzerland over the next decade, UBS forecasts. The bank proposes plugging the hole not only by immigration, but also by boosting more old and female workers. Basing its projections on long-term employment statistics, the bank says that the number of jobs to be filled could be anywhere between 300,000 and 500,000 over the next decade.

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Swiss pensioners most likely age group to be overweight

2019-06-28

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2019-06-28

Swiss seniors are much more likely to be overweight that other age categories, new statistics from the Federal Office for Public Health (FOPH) show. Some 53% of over-65-year-olds have a body mass index judged to be too high (over 25 on the BMI scale), according to the statistics released on Tuesday by the FOPH.

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Millionaires in Switzerland still on the rise

2019-06-22

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2019-06-22

Switzerland is home to the fourth-largest number of dollar millionaire households, according to a report by the Boston Consultancy Group (BCG). Worldwide, the number of such millionaires continues to rise. There are now some 500,000 millionaire households in Switzerland, BCG said, putting the Swiss in fourth place behind the US (around 15 million), China (1.3 million), and Japan (1.1 million).

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Swiss expat community hits 760,000

2019-04-01

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2019-04-01

Swiss Abroad 2018
The number of Swiss Abroad citizens grew by 1.1% to reach 760,200 at the end of last year. Most live in neighbouring countries and in the United States.The expatriate community accounts for 10.6% of the total number of Swiss nationals, according to official statistics published on Thursday. Nearly three-quarters of the Swiss Abroad have dual nationality.

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Parliament rejects reform of health insurance scheme

2019-03-23

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2019-03-23

Patients will not have to pay out extra money for health services before the health insurance covers the costs, after parliament surprisingly threw out the controversial proposal on Friday. In a previous decision earlier this month, parliament had agreed to increase the deductible paid by patients to CHF350 ($350) annually under certain conditions.

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Home-care services increase, nursing home stays stagnate

2018-11-17

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2018-11-17

Better at home than in a home: almost 350,000 people made use of assistance and home-care services (Spitex) last year, 10,000 more than in 2016. In contrast, the number of residents of old-age and nursing homes remained constant at 149,000, 15% of them for a short stay. Spitex, a Swiss non-profit organisation that provides in-home nursing services like changing bandages and administering medicine, chalked up nearly 16 million hours of home care and...

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Swiss expats buck the pension reform trend

2017-09-25

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2017-09-25

Unlike their compatriots in Switzerland, Swiss voters who live abroad came out massively in favour of a wide-ranging overhaul of Switzerland’s old-age pension scheme.  Eleven of Switzerland’s 26 cantons count the votes of Swiss expats separately. An analysis of Sunday’s results shows that in nine of these cantons more than 70% of Swiss abroad backed the “Old Age Security 2020” package, which aimed to guarantee the future financing of...

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Spending cuts for asylum seekers proposed

2017-09-02

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2017-09-02

The government wants to cut its financial contributions to asylum seekers as part of efforts to tighten the asylum procedure in Switzerland. The payments for individuals, currently around CHF6,000 ($6,312), could be reduced by a third, according to the Swiss News Agency.

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Swiss Sovereign money initiative: war on bankers but not on central banksters

2016-06-29

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2016-06-29

Iceland has gained the admiration of populists in recent years by doing that which no other nation in the world seems to be willing or capable of doing: prosecuting criminal bankers for engineering financial collapse for profit.

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