Unemployment in Switzerland (1990 - present)

After Second World War Switzerland had absolutely no experience with unemployement until about 1990:

• Economy was never that low as in surrounding countries, because the war did not destroy the economy.
• People for low-salary jobs mostly were from other countries and were sent back if not needed any more.

When for the first time things changed from an unemployment-rate of about 0.1% to about 1% at the end of the 1980ies Swiss officials had no idea how to cope with this situation. The unemployment insurance had accumulated some money, but it could be foreseen that this will be used up soon (also with this low rate). As a first measure both employees and employers had to pay 0.3% into this insurance (before 1991 it was 0.1% of ones salary!). Later this rate was increased to 3%.

I am not the person to report many details here, but the effects for the unemployed people were quite bad (at least until 1995, when the officials thought the nightmare was over):

• The support for unemployed people was lacking totally. Responsibilities were unclear for about 3 years.
• For the first money after loosing the job one had to wait 3 - 4 months. The situation calmed down only about 1994.
• The restrictions to get the money from the insurance were very harsh. They required you to accept jobs with a salary that low as 70% of your last one (and if you lost that again, 70% of that ...).
• Especially for technicians with age over 50 it became very difficult to get a new job:
  • In technical areas the experience has not the same value as in social professions.
    Due to the half decay time of knowledge a 35 year old may well have the same knowledge as a 55 year old.
  • The Swiss Pension Fond BVG (Betriebs-Vorsorge Gesetz) uses a rate which grows with your age (as of 2007): 25–34: 7%, 35–44: 10%, 45–54: 15% and 55–65: 18%. Hence for older people about 1/5 of the salary depends on the age – which is quite a discrimination.

Unemployement rate in Switzerland ( 1990 - present)

Data source: Unfortunately such a diagram is not available from 'official' sources. Only the data tables can be found at the SECO (1994 and younger) and at www.amstat.ch.

The same data displayed as spark lines

Unemployment Switzerland (1936 to 2007)

The vertical scale is the same as in the diagram above. The horizontal scale is broken at 1970 (no data available) which changes the sequence of labels.

Data Source: Excel file from the Swiss Buro of Statistics.

Further links

• Arbeitsmarktstatistik (aktueller monat) und archiv ab 2004
• Regional Unemployment Disparities in Switzerland (1996) : An Explanation