Swiss SMEs are becoming increasingly service-oriented
Published: Thursday, Oct 31st 2024, 11:30
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In Switzerland, 99 percent of all companies are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). They employ two thirds of the workforce in this country. This means that more people work in an SME in Switzerland than abroad. In addition, SMEs are increasingly active in the service sector.
In 2022, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) counted almost 620,000 market economy companies in Switzerland, employing a total of around 4.76 million people. Of these companies, 99.7 percent employ fewer than 250 people. They are therefore considered SMEs.
According to a press release issued by the FSO on Thursday, the shares remained relatively stable between 2011 and 2022. However, according to the press release, there was a shift in sectors, with a "strong tertiarization" taking place. The FSO explains this by stating that employment growth among SMEs in the period under review was almost exclusively limited to the tertiary sector. However, after "mixed years", employment in SMEs in the secondary sector, i.e. industry, has also returned to its 2011 level, according to the report.
According to the FSO, the economy continued to be affected by the coronavirus pandemic in 2022. This was evident among SMEs, with companies in the healthcare sector such as medical laboratories, psychotherapy practices and companies offering home care registering more employees. At the same time, however, companies from sectors that were severely affected by the pandemic, such as tourism, had already returned to their previous employment levels by 2022.
In addition, the proportion of women employed by Swiss SMEs increased more strongly between 2011 and 2022 than in the Swiss economy in general. The education and teaching as well as real estate and housing sectors recorded the strongest increase in female employees.
Proportion of micro-enterprises lower than abroad
SMEs make up by far the largest share of companies, not only in Switzerland but also abroad. According to the press release, the proportion of SMEs in the market economy sector was at least 99.5% in all countries surveyed by the FSO.
However, there are structural differences according to the size class of SMEs. With 86.9 micro-enterprises - i.e. companies with fewer than 10 employees - Switzerland, together with Germany (83.6%) and Luxembourg (86.5%), is one of the countries with the lowest proportion of micro-enterprises. On the other hand, the proportion of small and medium-sized enterprises, i.e. those with 10 to 49 or 50 to 249 employees, is higher in Switzerland than abroad.
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