A recent case in the canton of Bern reveals the risks of moving to a municipality where they speak a different language. A Brazilian women married to a Swiss national found this out the hard way, according to the newspaper 20 Minutes. After moving from a French-speaking municipality in the Canton of Neuchâtel to the […]
Vevey’s Fête des vignerons set to make large loss
With the celebration over, attention has shifted to the cost of the Fête des vignerons, Vevey’s once-in-25-year winegrowers festival. As the bills come in it looks like the festival will make a loss of CHF 16 million, according to the François Margot, who was interviewed by the newspaper 24 heures. Fête des Vignerons: “Le manque […]
Nearly 8% of Switzerland’s population has suicidal thoughts
Suicide prevention is a global challenge. Globally, around 800,000 people take their lives every year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). In 2016, not counting assisted suicides, around 1,000 people in Switzerland took their own lives, a rate of 12 per 100,000, a rate comparable to the average across Europe. To understand suicide better, […]
Swiss nationality stripped from a dual national for the first time
For the first time, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) has stripped a dual national of their Swiss nationality, according to a government press release. The man, who has been sentenced to several years in prison, was convicted of creating propaganda and recruiting fighters for a banned islamic terrorist organisation. Article 42 of the Federal […]
The remarkable rise of Switzerland’s GDP per capita
In 1998, GDP per person in Switzerland was CHF 59,693. Recently published statistics put the figure at CHF 80,986 in 2018, a rise of 36%. When Swiss GDP per capita is expressed in globally comparable US dollar terms its rise is even greater. In US dollar terms Swiss GDP per capita grew from US$ 41,497 […]
Housing vacancies rise in 20 Swiss cantons
Recent figures show an annual 4.2% rise in the number of vacant homes in Switzerland, extending a trend that started 10 years ago, according to the Federal Statistical Office. At the start of June 2019, there were 75,323 vacant homes, representing 1.66% of Switzerland’s total stock of homes. However, high vacancy rates in some regions […]
Switzerland’s regional exercise differences
More people in Switzerland are exercising for 2.5 hours a week, a level recommended by Swiss sports organisations. In 2002, 63% of the population across all of Switzerland was getting this amount of exercise. In 2017, 76% of the population spent this much time exercising, according to a study by the Federal Statistical Office that […]
Banks move to cool investment property market in Switzerland
Swiss banks have agreed to tighten lending conditions for investment properties following concerns by the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA), a self-regulatory body. The SBA, which represents most of Switzerland’s banks, has issued new lending guidelines requiring lending deposits of at least 25% of the assessed value of the property for residential investment properties. In addition, […]
Welfare fraudster gets nearly 4 years in prison
A man in Zurich has been sentenced to close to four years in prison after receiving more than half a million francs of welfare despite possessing numerous cars and large bank balances, according to Tages-Anzeiger and reported in 20 Minutes. The 51 year old man from Kosovo, who received CHF 527,000 of welfare money between […]
Suspected welfare cheats can be trailed from October
Agencies paying social welfare in Switzerland will be able to hire detectives to uncover fraud from 1 October 2019. In Switzerland, between 2009 and 2016, detectives were used on around 220 investigations a year. Two thirds of those trailed were found guilty of fraud. In 2016, the European court of human rights ruled that accident […]
