GDP per capita down slightly in 2023
Published: Thursday, Feb 29th 2024, 12:11
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Switzerland's gross domestic product (GDP) increased in 2023. However, per capita economic output fell slightly last year due to the increase in the population.
On Thursday, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) not only published the first estimate for GDP in 2023 as a whole, but also calculated GDP per capita based on a preliminary estimate of the population. And this shows that while GDP (adjusted for sporting events) increased by 1.3% overall in 2023, there was a slight decline per capita of the Swiss population (-0.1%).
On the one hand, GDP growth in 2023 has weakened significantly due to the economic situation, according to Seco. On the other hand, population growth is likely to have been higher than in previous years. Strong net immigration, which is mainly related to the continuing demand on the labor market, contributed to this, as did the movement of refugees due to the war in Ukraine.
The decline in per capita GDP follows three years characterized by the coronavirus crisis and the subsequent recovery. Following the slump in 2020 (-2.9%), GDP per capita recorded two years of above-average growth in the course of the economic recovery (2021: +4.3%; 2022: +1.2%). Overall, Switzerland's GDP per capita in 2023 was 2.4% above the 2019 level.
According to Seco, this also confirms the following in terms of GDP per capita: "The Swiss economy has come through the challenging years of the pandemic and the energy crisis relatively unscathed in an international comparison."
©Keystone/SDA
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