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Swiss GDP grew by 1.8% in the second quarter of 2021 after contracting by 0.4% in the first quarter of the year, according to figures published by Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. © Joe Ahead | Dreamstime.comMuch of the bounce back was in the services sector as Covid measures were relaxed. Private consumption recovered strongly and industry also grew, although not as strongly as in previous quarters. In the second quarter of 2021, total GDP was only 0.5 % lower...

In Switzerland, home owners must add a fictional or imputed rent to their taxable income, which is calculated based on the home’s floor area. Proposals to eliminate imputed rent have been around for sometime. This week, the Federal Council came out in support of a plan to eliminate it put forward earlier by a commission of the Council of States, Switzerland’s upper house. © Pavalache Stelian | Dreamstime.comThe Federal Council’s main motivation for changing the current system, which also...

After Switzerland ended talks with the EU on an institutional framework agreement aimed at replacing the country’s current patchwork of agreements with the bloc in May 2021, some in government have been focused on how to keep the EU on side. One obvious way to curry favour is to make the second 1 billion EU cohesion payment. © Gpagomenos | Dreamstime.comHowever, to make the payment, the Swiss government must agree. This week a commission voted 11 versus 2 in favour of making the payment,...

The latest UBS Swiss Real Estate Bubble Index published this week shows several regions at risk of overheating property prices. © Annanahabed | Dreamstime.comThe regions highlighted as exposed include Basel, Lausanne, Vevey, parts of the Vaud Alps, Lugano, Nidwalden, Luzern, Zug and the Zurich region, all parts of Switzerland where there is plenty of high paid work. Lausanne, Basel, Zug, Luzern and parts of the Zurich region are described as having fundamental risk, while Vevey and...

At 11:20am on Tuesday 3 August 2021, Swisscom’s network went down for 45 minutes, according to Fing, a network monitoring service. © Rostislav Ageev | Dreamstime.comThe outage stretched across nearly all of Switzerland’s highly populated plateau as well as the most southern part of the canton of Ticino, affecting most of the company’s customers – see image below. According to Fing, the network drop rate reached 71% of connections at its peak, affecting both fixed and mobile...

In 2016, the social security office in Zurich discovered a concealed bank account containing CHF 1 million belonging to a deceased man who had received welfare payments for 13 years, reported RTS. © Sergei Babenko | Dreamstime.comOver the 13 years, the man had received financial hardship payments, known as supplemental benefits, and health insurance subsidies amounting to CHF 140,000. When applying for hardship payments in Switzerland, all wealth must be declared. In general, an...

Those with a migration background in Switzerland are on average financially worse off than those without, according to data from the Federal Statistical Office. And those with a migration background pay on average 10% more per square metre of living space than the rest of the population. © | Dreamstime.comIn Switzerland, around 20% of those with a migration background have trouble making ends meet, compared to 7% of the rest of the population. On average, people without a migration...

Currently, the Swiss supermarket Migros does not sell alcoholic drinks in its stores. Gottlieb Duttweiler, the retailer’s founder, instituted the policy to promote public health when the company was started in 1925. © Tea | Dreamstime.comHowever, this autumn, the management of the cooperative is planning to vote on whether to allow alcohol on to the the company’s shelves for the first time, according to watson.ch and Le Matin Dimanche. Migros’ no-alcohol rule is already fraying at the...

Switzerland’s four largest buildings insurers estimate the costs of recent weather events could reach half a billion francs across Switzerland, reported RTS. © Angela Schmidt | Dreamstime.comAccording to Grégoire Deiss, who works for the cantonal buildings insurer ECAB in Fribourg, the cost of recent storms and flooding could be around CHF 500 million across all of Switzerland, a figure he based on claims that have been made so far. However, the final bill remains uncertain. More...

The youth chapter of the PLR (FDP) has successfully collected enough signatures for an initiative to raise the official retirement age in Switzerland to 66 years old, reported RTS. © Skypixel | Dreamstime.comOn 16 July 2021, initiative organisers submitted 145,000 voter signatures as part of the formal process of launching a referendum in Switzerland. Under referendum rules a minimum of 100,000 valid signatures must be collected within 18 months. The official retirement age in...