Research Division Swiss Labour Market

The division's research focuses on the analysis of factors influencing firms' demand for labour, immigration and immigration policy, unemployment, as well as the impact and functioning of digital labour markets. The divsion pays particular attention to the causes and effects of labour market discrimination, especially the employment, wage and education gaps between the sexes and discrimination against ethnic minorities.

As part of the KOF Economic Forecasts, the division examines employment, unemployment and wage trends in Switzerland. The division also oversees the KOF Employment Indicator, which provides an early assessment of the labour market situation in the coming months based on the KOF Business Tendency Surveys.

The research divsion also regularly analyses the effects of labour market policy measures as part of academic studies and expert reports for government and private partners. In doing so, the division's researchers often draw on large and linked data sets (big data), which are examined with the help of innovative research designs and modern empirical methods of causal inference and machine learning (ML). The overall goal of these analyses is to provide quantitative and meaningful evidence on labour market policy issues that are relevant to both policy makers and society. Some of the division's work has been published in renowned scientific journals such as the American Economic Review, Nature or the Journal of the European Economic Association.

The division also highlights its research foci in its teaching activities at ETH. Current courses include "Labor Economics" (Master's level), "Identification and Causal Inference" (PhD level) and "Writing and Publishing Research Papers in Economics" (PhD level).