Editions

Switzerland’s seasonal worker statute, which was abolished in 2002, tied residence permits to employers. According to the monopsony theory, such regulation gives employers greater bargaining power in wage-setting and could depress wages. This article analyses this hypothesis and suggests that immigrants’ social and economic rights – strengthened by the free movement of people – may have helped to reduce wage differentials.

Women are still under-represented in managerial positions in the academic sector. A programme for female professors in Germany aims to change this. An ongoing study involving KOF is investigating the success of this support programme.

Has the free movement of people had a negative impact on Swiss firms’ willingness to train apprentices? A new study shows that the number of apprenticeships did not fall during the first few years following the opening of the country’s border. However, the reasons why firms train apprentices has changed because it has become easier and cheaper for them to recruit suitable workers externally.

Restricting employment opportunities for refugees reduces their likelihood of working and earning in the long term. This imposes high costs on refugees and host societies.

KOF economist Andreas Beerli explains in an interview why immigration is desirable from an economic point of view and in which areas Switzerland still needs to improve.

What factors influence wage levels in the various sectors? This analysis shows that, in particular, the extent of the shortage of skilled workers in an industry is positively correlated with the wage growth expected by companies.

2022 will go down in history as an exceptional year for labour markets in Switzerland and many other European countries. KOF is forecasting that employment will increase by 1.5 per cent this year and 1 per cent next year.

In Switzerland – in contrast to Germany – low wages have managed to keep up surprisingly well with average wages. Research to date cannot conclusively explain the different trends in these two countries. In this article, KOF economist Kristina Schüpbach discusses various theories on this topic. One possible explanation is that Switzerland’s job market is more extensively covered by collective labour agreements than Germany’s.

New technologies are fundamentally changing the demand for labour in Switzerland and other countries. Is the Swiss workforce about to be replaced by robots, artificial intelligence and other digital technologies?

There is a renewed shortage of skilled labour in Switzerland. A recent study published in the Journal of Population Economics shows how computerisation is driving the Swiss economy’s demand for highly skilled workers. This trend is thus having a significant impact on what sort of people are immigrating to Switzerland.

Compared with female graduates in fields such as law and psychology, female STEM graduates have higher salaries one year after graduation, are more likely to have permanent jobs and are more likely to hold managerial positions. Even five years after graduation, four out of five female STEM graduates are in jobs that require a degree in their specialist field. Overall, female STEM graduates seem satisfied with their employment situation.

A special survey conducted by KOF examines the wage expectations of Swiss companies from today until one year from now. A majority of firms in almost all sectors expect to see wage growth of 1 per cent or more.

KOF has used so-called web-scraping and text-mining methods to investigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Swiss companies. Among other things, this study comes to the conclusion that production problems occurred mainly at small and medium-sized firms during the first wave of coronavirus, while larger companies were more seriously affected during the second wave.

KOF labour market expert Michael Siegenthaler talks about the winners and losers of the COVID-​19 pandemic and discusses the outlook for wages and employment once the crisis has subsided.

The main reason for the persistent gender differences in the labour market is the unequal distribution of unpaid work. This leads to women doing less work than men, which has a negative impact on their performance in the labour market.

At the height of the coronavirus crisis, 1.35 million individuals in Switzerland were working short time. A recent special study by KOF looks at how those on short-​time working used their extra free time in 2020.

In a study conducted for Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), KOF has examined the use of the Job-Room.ch online job platform within the context of the introduction of mandatory job notification. It shows that people without IT skills, with little knowledge of the local language or with low levels of education are at a disadvantage.

Gainful and inactive work is still unequally distributed between the sexes. One reason is that few men work part-time. This is partly due to the fact that men looking for part-time jobs are discriminated against by recruiters.

The impact of uncertainty on the economy was most recently illustrated in the context of the pandemic. But the uncertainty was also a decisive factor in previous crises. A new KOF study examines the impact of uncertainty on economic development.

At the beginning of 2015 the Swiss National Bank abandoned the franc-euro minimum exchange rate, triggering a deflationary shock. How did incomes and unemployment of workers with and without rigid wages react to this?

On paper, employment in Switzerland has hardly fallen despite the coronavirus crisis. But a brief look behind the scenes shows that the pandemic and its economic impact have also affected the labour market. Many companies will remain reluctant to create new jobs on a large scale until the current uncertainty has subsided.

Using a new method, researchers from KOF and ETH have for the first time studied how discrimination occurs on online job boards. They are able to show that discrimination based on origin is widespread – and that the time of day plays a key role. So do online platforms increase discrimination in job searches or, on the contrary, can they be used to create more fairness? Co-author Daniel Kopp discusses the most important findings.

After the labour market had deteriorated sharply in the spring, it recovered over the summer - thanks in particular to short-time working. However, the outlook for the winter suggests that a second wave of unemployment is to be expected. The increase in nominal wages next year is likely to be the lowest in 80 years.

In Switzerland the proportion of women studying technical subjects is lower than in most other OECD countries. Despite many support programmes, this situation has hardly changed in the last ten years. A study based on new educational data reveals major cantonal differences: in the cantons of Zurich and Zug, for example, twice as many female Matura students embark on STEM courses as in Geneva and Uri.

In Switzerland there is still a significant unexplained pay gap between women and men. It is conceivable that women accept lower salaries because they attach more importance to other factors such as pleasant working conditions. However, the latest findings from a survey of ETH Zurich alumni do not support this theory.

Unemployment in Switzerland surged in the first half of the year as a result of the coronavirus crisis. Nevertheless, Switzerland has so far got off relatively lightly by international standards. Unemployment in Switzerland has risen less sharply than in the UK or Canada, for example, but slightly more than in Sweden or Germany. The example of Sweden shows that the crisis has hit the labour market hard even in cases where the authorities have not ordered a lockdown.

Since July 2018, companies have been required to register any vacancies in professions with unemployment levels of more than 8% with the regional employment offices (RAV). As of 1 January, this threshold was lowered to 5% and the classifications of reportable professions were narrowed down. Despite the lower threshold, the effective scope of the job registration requirement has declined. On top of this, the bigger weight of the building sector will affect implementation.

In 2018, net immigration to Switzerland hit the lowest level in twelve years. However, this is not due to lower immigration figures but to higher emigration – including Swiss nationals. In many cases, it is young people who emigrate, but numbers among 64 and 65 year-olds are also noticeably high.

There has been significant progress in the integration of the most recent refugee cohort into the German labour market. This is also relevant for Switzerland, which is confronted with similar challenges.

Digital technologies represent a major challenge for the labour market. According to a new study, Swiss firms are investing in digitalisation, although this is resulting in the loss of some jobs. However, the process ultimately leads to the creation of more new jobs.

Although the Swiss economy went through a difficult phase in 2015 and 2016, real wages grew relatively substantially during this period, only to drop again in the subsequent two years. This development provides five key insights into wage setting in Switzerland.

Has the free movement of persons resulted in new jobs or has it simply shifted jobs from local residents to immigrants? Has it raised salaries among local residents or reduced them? These are the questions that were investigated in the context of an extensive research programme in which three KOF researchers played a leading role. 

The Swiss labour market is following a positive trend. According to the KOF forecast, the unemployment rate will remain low and will even decline slightly. The impact of the new job registration requirement is as yet unclear.

Do we work more when it pays off? Not necessarily, as a new study by Isabel Martìnez, Michael Siegenthaler and Emmanuel Saez shows. On the basis of Swiss data, the authors demonstrate that a temporary total exemption from income tax has not really resulted in increased labor input.

‘Unemployment in Switzerland drops to 2008-levels’ - headlines like this have done the rounds after the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) presented its latest unemployment figures at the beginning of the month. Regrettably, however, the situation on the labour market is not (yet) as rosy as it was in early 2008. The new unemployment figures are not comparable with the historic figures.

In Switzerland, unemployment begins to decline when GDP growth reaches around 2%. However, the correlation between unemployment and GDP is less pronounced in Switzerland than in other countries. Among the main reasons is the fact that Swiss companies frequently hire foreign employees to meet their staff requirements.

The current step-by-step introduction of paid sick leave in the USA is accompanied by a significant decline in the influenza rate. This article illustrates the correlation between paid sick leave and contagion, and suggests that sick pay schemes can be used to avoid contagion.

Short-time work schemes are intended to prevent unemployment during recessions. So far, very few studies have provided evidence of the desired effect. A current KOF study now shows that the Swiss short-time work programme in the years 2009 to 2015 effectively prevented lay-offs. The savings in unemployment benefits are likely to have covered the direct expenses associated with short-time work compensation payments.

The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) has commissioned external studies to investigate the effects of the increase in the value of the Swiss franc on the structure of exports, employment, investment and R&D spending. These studies also include three KOF studies, which show how the increase in the value of the franc has impacted on the competitiveness of the economy as a whole, including employment, prices for industrial goods, investment, spending on research and development by exporters.

The financial crisis years have made it clear that the labour markets in many eurozone countries were too rigid to adjust to unexpected macroeconomic changes. As a consequence, the eurozone temporarily lost more than five million jobs and unemployment persistently remained above 10 per cent for a long time. Various structural adjustments combined with the economic recovery have led to an improvement of the labour market situation since 2013.

In the last few years, real wages have risen substantially in Switzerland – despite the historically weak trend in nominal wages. In the coming two years, however, there may be no real growth in wages. A significant and problematic wage differential continues to exist between men and women.

Although the prevalence of part-time work among women facilitates their integration into the labour market, it also has its downsides. Part-time work represents a career barrier, cementing inequality between the sexes. Childcare is the main reason why women opt for part-time work. A larger range of childcare facilities and more part-time executive positions for women and men would mitigate the problem.

A large number of entrepreneurs in Switzerland say that free movement of persons is a key element in the success of their business. But has free movement of persons really made businesses larger, more productive and more innovative? A new KOF study shows that it has: businesses have indeed become larger and more innovative. In fact, due to free movement of persons, they are increasingly deciding to produce in Switzerland.

Companies are increasingly asking for a certain amount of work experience in job advertisements. How can graduates gain such experience and which type of experience will actually help them get the job? A recent KOF study shows that work placements abroad and voluntary work, in particular, seem to have little prospect of success.

The jobless statistics and SECO’s registered unemployment statistics show a very similar trend if the count only includes the unemployed population that is registered with an employment office. With the number of long-term unemployed rising, the jobless statistics are going up – a phenomenon that the SECO statistics do not reflect since many unemployed are not registered with a job centre.