20 Minutes. Before a Swiss popular vote or referendum can be launched 100,000 valid signatures must be collected within the space of 18 months. The group behind a vote to introduce paid paternity leave of four weeks recently announced it had collected more than 120,000 signatures, 6 months ahead of the 18 month deadline, suggesting there might be […]
Coop experiments with first 100% vegetarian store
Coop recently opened its first vegetarian shop. The store, which is in Zug’s train station, sells no meat and no strong alcoholic drinks, such as whiskey. The store concept dubbed “Karma” includes 2,000 meat-free products. The supermarket chain described the launch as not just good news for vegans, vegetarians and flexitarians, those who eat little […]
Swiss government moves a step closer to axing capital withdrawals from pensions
Swiss pensions have three parts. The first is a standard payment based on the number of years you have paid social security taxes (AVS / AHV). The second (2nd pillar) is based on a personal pot of money built up from compulsory salary deductions. And the third is a personal pot derived from optional tax deductible […]
Around one in 30 men in Switzerland don’t brush their teeth every day
In Switzerland dentists are expensive. Brushing and an occasional trip to the dental hygienist on the other hand is a relatively inexpensive way to dodge those costly trips. Despite this many still seem to avoid it, according to a report published this week. In 2012, more than half of the population (51%) visited a dental […]
Switzerland not the most expensive in Europe for some mobile packages
Yesterday, the price comparison website Verivox published a study comparing mobile phone costs across 13 european countries. On most measures Switzerland was the most expensive, and by a wide margin. A plan including 100 minutes of talk and 1 Go (gigaoctet1) of data per month costs an average of CHF 25 per month in Switzerland. […]
Mortgage reference rate falls opening way for Swiss rent cuts
Every three months the rate of interest used to set Swiss rents is reviewed. If it goes down some renters have the right to request a decrease in rent. This time it dropped 0.25% to 1.50%. The interest rate used to set the reference rate was the average rate on Swiss mortgages at 31 March 2017 […]
More than half of children under 6 in Switzerland have a foreign parent
In 1950, 6% of Switzerland’s nearly 5 million residents were foreign. By 2015, 24.6% of the nation’s 8.3 million inhabitants, more than 2 million, were. The vast majority of foreigners in Switzerland in 2015 were from Europe (84.6%). Relatively smaller percentages were from Asia (6.7%), Africa (4.6%), Latin America (2.6%), North America (1.3%) and Australasia (0.2%). […]
More than 60 percent of urban Swiss affected by noise pollution
A report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) shows at least 2.5 million of the people living in Switzerland’s 13 largest cities are exposed to noise levels above 55 decibels, a level at which noise becomes annoying and above the 50 decibels that disturbs sleep. This number, which relates only those living in Switzerland’s 13 largest urban […]
Swiss healthcare ranked third globally for preventing death
A study of data from 195 countries from 1990 to 2015 published recently in the medical journal The Lancet, ranks Switzerland’s healthcare system third. The analysis looked at mortality rates from causes that should not be fatal in the presence of effective medical care. It considered both healthcare access and quality and was designed with […]
Could compulsory military service be extended to Swiss women?
20 Minutes. In Switzerland all able men must serve in the country’s military when they turn 18. Women can sign up however this is not legally required and few do. The minimum military training male Swiss citizens must undertake depends on rank. For the lowest rank of corporal the minimum is 260 days, which starts with initial […]
