le News

Travail Suisse, an association representing Swiss employees, highlights once more the age discrimination faced by those over 50 in the Swiss job market. © Felix Mizioznikov | Dreamstime.com In March 2017, 26.8% of unemployed in the this age group had been without work for more than a year, compared to 2.3% of those between 15 and 24 and 14.1% of those aged 25 to 49. According to RTS, the unemployed over 50 take twice as long to find a new job. The number expected to join their ranks is...

Over the year ending 31 March 2017, apartment prices across Switzerland dropped by 6.8%, according to a property price report published by the Zurich-based research and consulting firm Fahrländer Partner FPRE. Close to half of the decline (-3.2%) occurred in the first quarter of 2017. © Sylgal | Dreamstime.com Mid-range apartments hardest hit Across the year, the price of mid-range apartments fell most (-9.4%), followed by high-end ones (-6.3%) and smaller lower cost ones (-0.9%). The largest...

Tribune de Genève. The French tax authorities will not get Swiss help to investigate tax payers identified in data taken by Hervé Falciani from HSBC private bank in Geneva. © Steeve Baillon – Dreamstime.com HSBC, owner of the private bank in Geneva, which became part of HSBC in 1999 when it was acquired from Republic National Bank, a group run by Lebanese-born financier Edmond Safra, described the data taken from the bank in 2008, as stolen, reported the BBC. In addition, Falciani was later...

24 Heures. A Swiss chef from Aargau came first in this year’s ranking of the world’s 50 best restaurants. Daniel Humm – Source: Facebook_chefdanielhumm Daniel Humm, co-owner of the restaurant Eleven Madison Park, comes from Strengelbach in Switzerland, and earned his first Michelin star at 24. In 2003, he moved to the United States to become a chef at Campton Place in San Francisco. Three years later, he moved to New York to Eleven Madison Park. He and Will Guidara now co-own the restaurant....

The reflation trade that started before Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections accelerated in Q1 as global economic data improved and surprised against expectations. Global equities are up 6.5% in dollar terms with markets such as Hong Kong, emerging markets, and Brazil the clear outperformers. In its Q2 2017 Outlook report, Saxo Bank warns that the reflation trade will end in Q2 with a healthy correction in global equities.   The biggest perception-versus-reality...

On 11 March 2012, Swiss voted to accept a law restricting the construction of secondary residences, homes that are only used occasionally by owners living somewhere else. Under the law no more than 20% of a municipality’s housing can be second homes. Those with percentages above 20% run into building restrictions. The initiative was nick named Lex Weber after one of the main figures behind the initiative, the environmentalist Franz Weber. Chalet apartments in Verbier – © Chechotkin |...

Le Matin. The French-Swiss group, described as “disreputable” by the Ville de Paris, will not be supplying sand to the city of Paris this summer. © Kevinbrine | Dreamstime.com Paris Plages (Beaches), a project that creates temporary beaches of sand along the banks of the river Seine every summer, said it would take no more sand from LafargeHolcim because of its willingness get involved in Donald Trumps’s disastrous Mexican wall project. Bruno Julliard, a representative of Paris’s mayor, said...

20 Minutes. Some United Nations consultants haven’t paid taxes on their income, thinking it was exempt. When the tax authorities catch up with them they’ll risk paying back taxes and fines. Photo: Phillip Judd As a general rule, foreign UN functionaries are not required to pay local taxes on their income. On the other hand UN consultants must. Over the weekend, Swiss broadcaster RTS, explain the details of a system misunderstood by some. The programme showed an IT consultant, who convinced no...

In 2015, 21.7% of Switzerland’s population was unable to cover an unexpected expense of CHF 2,500 within a month, says a report from the Swiss Federal Statistics Office. © Alex Hinds | Dreamstime.com Single parent families were the least able to cope with 46.1% of them falling into this camp. Single parent families were followed by single people under 65 (27.1%) and two-parent families (24.0%). Among couples with no children only 12.2% would struggle to cover an unplanned payment of 2,500...

Credit Suisse has confirmed that the Swiss bank, some of its employees and hundreds of account holders are the subjects of a major tax evasion probe launched in UK, France, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands, setting back Swiss attempts to clean up its image as a haven for tax evaders. According to Bloomberg, Dutch investigators seized jewellery, paintings and even gold bars as part of a sweeping investigation into tax evasion and money laundering in the Netherlands. They added that the...