When workers in Switzerland change employers they typically take their salary-based pensions with them. However, if they leave the country without making any pension transfer arrangements, after six months, their pension money ends up with the Substitute Occupational Benefit Institution, a kind of backstop holding place for forgotten pensions. At the the end of 2022, […]
Retirement at 68.2 to cover Swiss pension shortfall, says UBS
Swiss resident’s are regularly reminded of the large financial gap is Switzerland’s state pension system. Despite this, several attempts at reform have failed to gain sufficient support. Those that have still leave a large shortfall. On 24 January 2023, UBS published four additional reform scenarios. Only the fourth, with a life expectancy adjusted retirement age […]
Swiss government aims to cut 2 billion from 2024 budget
Like many governments across the world, Switzerland’s federal government is spending more than it collects. Extraordinary spending on Covid and refugees has pushed Switzerland’s finances into the red, a situation Karin Keller-Sutter, the current finance minister, hopes to eliminate by 2024. During its meeting on 25 January 2023, the Federal Council made preliminary decisions to […]
Professional training boosts pay by 46% in Switzerland
Switzerland offers workers the possibility of obtaining professional qualifications while working. Around 27,500 people graduate from these federally recognised higher vocational education programmes every year. Six years after graduating from these programmes the median income for a full-time job is about CHF 7,800 per month, compared with the CHF 5,300 received five years before obtaining […]
Electricity prices could rise more in 2024, suggests head of Swiss regulator
At a meeting in Bern on 19 January 2023, Werner Luginbühl, the head of Elcom, Switzerland’s electricity regulator, called on the sector to be careful to manage consumer expectations, reported RTS. According to Luginbühl, many consumers are confused by Switzerland’s rising electricity prices. Some think the electricity consumed in Switzerland comes from hydro and nuclear […]
Cantons caught short by Swiss National Bank losses
On 9 January 2023, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) announced it had made a loss of CHF 132 billion over the course of 2022. Despite the near certainty of the losses and the resulting absence of SNB payments to cantons, a number of cantons included the extra revenue in their budgets, reported RTS. The SNB […]
Swiss unemployment lowest in 20 years
On 9 January 2023, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) published the latest figures for the Swiss labor market in 2022 showing unemployment at its lowest rate for 20 years. 2022 saw the development of a labour market increasingly characterised by a shortage of workers and an unemployment rate of 2.1%, said SECO. The […]
Switzerland’s worker shortage putting pressure on unemployed to change career
By international standards, unemployment payments are generous in Switzerland – typically 70% of salary. But they come with strict requirements for recipients to show they are engaging in actions deemed necessary to find work. With record numbers of unfilled jobs, pressure is now being put on some to change career, reported RTS. According to one […]
Swiss rents and property prices up in 2022
A sharp rise in rent in December 2022 (+1.1%) left the average Swiss rent 4.3% higher than at the beginning of 2022, according to the Swiss Real Estate Offer Index, published on 4 January 2023 by SMG Swiss Marketplace Group. This annual jump of 4.3% exceeds the annual CPI increase of 2.8% announced this week. […]
No money likely from the Swiss central bank in 2023
In good years the Swiss National Bank (SNB) distributes a portion of its profits to a number cantonal tax authorities, boosting their income. However, there will likely be no payments in 2023, reported the newspaper 20 Minutes. When the SNB was trying to moderate the rise of the franc it bought large quantities of assets […]
