Tag Archives: 3) Swiss Markets and News

Robots will replace humans in up to a quarter of all jobs by 2020, says McKinsey. The growing trend of digitization in the economy will render a million Swiss jobs redundant in the next 12 years, according to a new study. Some 800,000 jobs will be clawed back by new IT openings, but much of the workforce will need to be re-trained, warns consultancy firm McKinsey. Automation will mainly take the place of manual labour,...

On time, but increasingly crowded; trains in Switzerland. (© KEYSTONE / ENNIO LEANZA) The latest Europe-wide figures confirm Switzerland’s reputation as a country of trains, with average trips and kilometres covered per habitant far higher than elsewhere. Some 72 trips and 2,463 kilometres: this was the average train time for each Swiss resident in 2016, according to Eurostat figures reported Tuesday by Litraexternal...

Swiss billionnaire and art collector Urs Schwarzenbach owns the most luxurious hotel in Zurich. Switzerland’s highest judicial authority has dismissed an appeal by the financier and art collector Urs Schwarzenbach who had been found guilty of tax evasion by lower courts. The Wednesday ruling by the Supreme Court obliges the 69-year-old billionaire – owner of The Dolder Grand Hotelexternal link in Zurich – to pay CHF11.4...

Swiss products exported to Turkey may also be too expensive for local markets because of the current weakness of the Turkish lira. The severe policies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have led to Swiss companies decreasing their investments in Turkey by 50% compared to the average over the past decade, Swiss Public Television SRF reports. Over the last ten years, Swiss companies have on average invested some CHF200...

Risks from the international arena, such as the potential impact of a no-deal Brexit on world trade, threaten to upset exporters’ recovery from the 2015 strong franc shock. (Keystone) Switzerland’s GDP is on track this year to increase by 2.9%, according to a forecast by Zurich’s KOF Swiss Economic Instituteexternal link published Wednesday. This positive outlook is tempered by concerns over the potentially negative...

Rows of vines in Valais, the canton at the heart of the Swiss wine-growing industry. Swiss agricultural production is up in 2018, driven largely by bigger hauls of wine, fruit and milk, according to the latest official statistics. Productivity is also on the rise. The yearly production estimate of CHF10.6 billion ($10.7 billion) released on Tuesday by the Federal Statistical Officeexternal link represents an increase of...

Swiss owners of property abroad had until September 30 to come forward and declare it The automatic exchange of information between Switzerland and the European Union came into effect on Monday. Owning property abroad without declaring it will no longer be possible. The deadline of September 30 ended the possibility of coming forward voluntarily, reported Swiss public televisionexternal link, RTS, on Sunday. For...

Companies argue that the Swiss workforce alone cannot fill every highly skilled job vacancy. The Swiss authorities have responded to demands from companies and cantons for access to highly-skilled employees by granting 1,000 extra permits for workers that come from outside the European Union from next year. From 2019, firms will be able to recruit 8,500 foreign workers from countries such as the United States, China and...

ETH Zurich came in at 7th and 19th place in the QS and Shanghai rankings respectively this year. The Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) remains the best university in continental Europe, despite slipping one place to 11th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2019. The listexternal link, which was released on Wednesday, scores 1,250 universities on five main criteria: teaching,...

“Most households can no longer afford to buy property in the top financial centres without a substantial inheritance”. Sound familiar to Zurich and Geneva dwellers? An index by Swiss bank UBS shows significant risks of real estate bubbles in booming cities such as Hong Kong, Munich and Toronto. The Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva remain relatively stable. The 2018 Global Real Estate Bubble Indexexternal link,...