Majority of top-selling corporate groups in foreign hands
Published: Thursday, Nov 23rd 2023, 11:31
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The groups with the highest turnover in Switzerland are mostly foreign-owned. However, if we look at the number of employees rather than turnover, their importance for Switzerland is lower.
This is according to the statistics on business groups (STAGRE) published on Thursday by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) for the years 2014 to 2022. At the end of 2022, almost 62,000 groups of companies in Switzerland belonged to a so-called enterprise group. This refers to companies that control at least one, but often several, subsidiaries.
Looking at these groups by turnover, the picture is very mixed. This is because the turnover of the various corporate groups varies massively.
In total, the corporate groups active in Switzerland generated almost CHF 2.5 trillion in 2021. The majority of this was generated by foreign multinationals (around CHF 1.6 trillion). Swiss multinationals contributed only a third of this turnover.
Among foreign groups, a high 89 percent of turnover was attributable to groups with an annual turnover of CHF 750 million or more. That is only 224 groups or less than two percent of all foreign multinationals operating in this country.
2 million employees
Looking at the influence of company groups on the labor market, all company groups together employed over 2 million people or around 40% of all employees in Switzerland in 2022. Overall, Swiss companies had a greater influence on the labor market than foreign companies.
Around 43,000 corporate groups with a total of almost one and a half million employees were under Swiss control. The category of foreign groups, on the other hand, comprised just over 18,000 groups of companies with more than 550,000 employees.
Significant shifts in host countries
Looking only at the category of foreign groups, most Swiss employees worked for a subsidiary of a group from Germany, the USA or France. This top 3 has remained stable over the years.
However, there were also significant shifts in the lower ranks. The number of jobs at Chinese-controlled companies increased around fivefold during the period under review, while it more than tripled at companies under Luxembourg control. In contrast, Italian-controlled companies recorded a decline in the number of employees.
©Keystone/SDA
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