A new international train network, known as the Léman Express, is set to launch on 15 December 2019. Eight years in the making, the new rail network connects the Swiss cantons of Vaud and Geneva with neighbouring France. 40 new trains running on 6 new train lines will link 45 train stations across the region. Swiss […]
Lausanne ranked world’s best small city
Lausanne grabs top spot in the global affairs and lifestyle magazine Monocle’s debut ranking of the world’s best small cities. To qualify, a city needs to be home to roughly 200,000 people. This provides a sweet spot between social and cultural diversity and quaintness, according to the publisher. Lausanne has a population of 140,000. Once […]
Some Swiss import duties could be axed
Swiss import duties on a number of industrial products might disappear if a plan put forward by Guy Parmelin, Switzerland’s economic’s minister, is approved by the National Council, Switzerland’s parliament, according to RTS. The changes are expected to benefit businesses and consumers by around CHF 860 million a year. On the other hand, the government […]
Staff suspected of stealing from passenger luggage at Geneva airport
Two people who work for the company Dnata at Geneva airport have been arrested, according the newspaper Le Temps. The individuals are suspected of stealing objects from passenger luggage over the last few months, possibly years. Last Monday, airport police undertook an unannounced search of the airport’s baggage handlers. During the search two Dnata staff […]
Switzerland’s skilled worker shortage worsens
At 30 September 2019, Switzerland had 79,000 job vacancies and 225,000 unemployed workers. This combination of unemployment and job vacancies can largely be explained by two things. The first is frictional unemployment, the period spent in between jobs. This typically increases when there is a lot of job changing. The second is a skills mismatch. […]
Swiss PISA scores continue to decline in 2018
On 3 December 2019, the OECD published the 2018 PISA scores for 79 countries. In Switzerland, around 6,000 school pupils born in 2002 from more than 200 school across Switzerland took the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) test. PISA, run every three years, assesses the extent to which 15-year-old students, near the end of […]
Swiss foreign work permit quotas maintained for 2020
Every year, Switzerland sets quotas for the number of work visas it issues to citizens outside the EU and EFTA. This week the government announced it would maintain the quota of 8,500 permits that was in place in 2018. In addition, it confirmed an earlier deal it struck with the UK to issue up to […]
1 in 10 Swiss hospitals face financial difficulty
Around one hospital in ten in Switzerland could end up in financial difficultly, according to a report by PWC. In addition, 37 of the 44 hospitals surveyed will not be profitable enough to remain competitive over the next five to ten years, predict the authors of the report. The shift towards more outpatient care instead […]
Number of jobs reaches all-time high in Switzerland
Unemployment rose in the third quarter of 2019, however, there have never been more jobs in Switzerland. The total number of jobs in Switzerland rose to 5.137 million at 30 September 2019, a level never seen before. The figure was 1.3% higher than at 30 September 2018 and 0.3% higher than 30 June 2019. And […]
Compensating victims of Switzerland’s administrative detention ahead of schedule
Up until 1981, the Swiss authorities imprisoned thousands of people who were not tried for any crime, under a procedure known as administrative detention. 60,000 were imprisoned in this way, often for years at a time, according to an estimate published by RTS. Referred to as a kind of compulsory welfare, people, including men, women […]
