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Swiss unemployment is at its lowest for 3.5 years, according to the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). © Gpointstudio | Dreamstime.com The last time Swiss unemployment reached March 2018’s level was in October 2014. After reaching a peak of 3.7% in January 2017, the rate had fallen to 2.9% by March 2018. Unemployment has some seasonality however the rate for last March (2.9%) is low even when compared to March 2016 (3.5%) and March 2017 (3.4%). As usual French-speaking...

Philomena Colatrella, the CEO of Swiss insurer CSS Insurance, has stirred the lively debate around Switzerland’s rising cost of health insurance by proposing deductibles of CHF 5,000 and CHF 10,000 – deductibles set the amount people pay out of their own pockets before their insurance kicks in. CSS Versicherung_source Facebook Colatrella discussed the idea in an interview with Blick. The response to her comments was widely covered by Switzerland’s media, including by the broadcaster RTS....

Across the road from Lake Geneva, sits Geneva’s and the world’s most expensive hotel suite. The Hotel President Wilson’s Royal Penthouse Suite is reported to cost $83,500 per night – the price is not listed on the hotel’s website but costs this much according to CNN. © Tacettin Ulas | Dreamstime.com For most of those planning to visit Geneva, this price is, thankfully, an outlier. According to a report by the accounting firm PwC, the average nightly cost of a hotel in Geneva was €242.90 in...

In some parts of Switzerland welfare payments are effectively loans that must be repaid when the recipient’s financial situation improves. © PeJo29 | Dreamstime.com According to the Aargauer Zeitung, a welfare recipient in the commune of Klingnau in the canton of Aargau received a bill of 173,000 francs after he came into some money. A windfall of 173,000 francs is rare, according to Rolf Walker, head of administration at the commune. Where the money came from in this case was not disclosed,...

According to Tribune de Genève, Hervé Falciani was arrested in Madrid last week at Switzerland’s request. Hervé Falciani – source: Wikipedia In 2008, Falciani a French-Italian who grew up in Monaco, took confidential information from the Geneva offices of HSBC, his employer, and fled to Lebanon where some claim he attempted to sell it. Later he shared the information with authorities in France and sought refuge there in 2009. The information contained client information, some of which related...

In 2016, 7.5% of Switzerland’s population survived on a income below the poverty line, defined as CHF 3,981 a month for a couple with two young children, CHF 3,039 for a couple without children and CHF 2,247 for a single person. © Inna Blanco | Dreamstime.com Among the 615,000 people encountering poverty in Switzerland in 2016, 140,000 were working. Over the four years up to and including 2016, 12.3% of Swiss residents experienced one or more periods of poverty. For most (7.7%) it lasted one...

At the end of March 2018, the Swiss National Bank (SNB), held 8.93 million A class shares compared to Mark Zuckerberg’s holding of 8.91 million, according to the newspaper Handelszeitung. © Bumbleedee | Dreamstime.com However, most of Zuckerberg’s shares are B class shares, a class of shares which is not quoted and give the founder control of the business. Zuckerberg holds 393.9 million of these. Together his A class and B class shares give him a 13.8% stake in the business, valued at around...

Comparing the most recent statistics on Swiss consumer inflation to those in 1993 reveals a steep drop in the percentage of spending allocated to food. © Tero Vesalainen | Dreamstime.com When statisticians calculate consumer price rises they look at the prices of a standard basket of goods. In 1993, food and non-alcoholic beverages made up 14.3% of the value of this standard basket. By 2018, the percentage had fallen to 10.4%, a 27% drop. The chart below compares the percentages spent on food...

When Geneva’s finances make the news it is typically bad. At the end of 2016, the canton had debts of CHF 12.5 billion, equal to 153% of its income. In January 2018, the rating agency Standard and Poors gave Geneva a negative outlook citing risks related to the canton’s poorly funded public pension scheme. © Sam74100 | Dreamstime.com This time the news is good. The CHF 80 million budget deficit predicted for 2017 turned into a CHF 69 million surplus, CHF 149 million better. So what happened?...

A boost to investment and net exports from the tailwind of strong external demand, together with faster expansion of household spending owing to rising employment, are forecast to lift GDP growth to around 2¼ percent in 2018, said the IMF in a statement referring to Switzerland issued on 26 March 2018. © Tibor Ritter | Dreamstime.com On the downside the IMF said: rising international trade tensions could impact Switzerland’s externally-oriented economy. More uncertain geopolitics could...