Number of people in employment continues to rise in Switzerland
Published: Monday, Nov 13th 2023, 09:10
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The Swiss labor market remains extremely robust. The number of people in employment increased by 2.2% to 5.310 million in the third quarter of 2023 compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
The number of employed men rose by 1.8 percent, while the number of employed women increased by 2.6 percent. These are the findings of the Swiss Labor Force Survey (SLFS) published by the Federal Statistical Office on Monday.
Expressed in full-time equivalents, the increase amounted to 2.4%. The increase for men was 2.0%, while the increase for women was 2.9%. Seasonally adjusted, i.e. compared to the second quarter of 2023, the number of people in employment fell by 0.2%, while the number of full-time equivalents remained unchanged.
The number of foreigners rose particularly sharply. While the number of Swiss employees rose only slightly year-on-year (+0.7%), the increase among foreign employees was more striking (+5.2%).
Youth unemployment rate on the rise
The unemployment rate fell to 4.2% in the third quarter, compared to 4.3% in the same period of the previous year. This means that 214,000 people were unemployed in Switzerland according to the International Labor Organization (ILO) definition. That was 1,000 more than a year earlier.
The ILO unemployment rate is significantly higher than the unemployment rate as defined by Seco, which only counts people registered as unemployed. Seco also publishes monthly rather than quarterly figures. In October, the Seco unemployment rate remained at a very low level of 2.0%.
Meanwhile, the youth unemployment rate according to the ILO (15 to 24-year-olds) in Switzerland has risen further year-on-year - to 10.5% in the third quarter after 9.2% in the same period last year. In contrast, a decline was recorded among young people in the EU in the same period, but the bottom line is that the rate is still significantly higher than the rate here (14.5%).
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