Tag Archives: 3) Swiss Markets and News

Swiss builders will receive CHF150 more a month in effective wages from next year © Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi Construction workers and trade unions in Switzerland have reached an agreement in a long-running labour dispute. Builders will receive CHF150 ($158) more a month in effective wages from next year and minimum wages will increase by CHF100 a month. The new national agreement, reached on Monday night “after intensive negotiations”, will take effect on...

© Beriliu | Dreamstime.com Close to half of renters is Switzerland could face significant increases in rent, estimates Zürich Kantonalbank (ZKB), with rents potentially rising as much as 15% over the next five years, reported the newspaper Blick. The reference mortgage rate used to set rents, which was has been 1.25% since March 2020 could rise as high as 2.5% between now and 2027, said the bank in a recently published real estate report. This means that any leases...

The head of Credit Suisse’s Swiss division says that only a few clients are actually closing accounts at the bank. His comments after the troubled bank reported high customer fund withdrawals globally. “Some clients have withdrawn part of their funds, but only very few have actually closed their accounts,”  the CEO of Credit Suisse’s Swiss unit, André Helfenstein, said in an interview published in the SonntagsZeitung and Le Matin Dimanche. “We have only lost...

Skiers in Zermatt will be forking out 5% more for day passes compared to last winter. Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott Some ski lift companies are charging up to 15% more for passes this winter as high energy prices bite, a survey by CH Media shows. Out of 16 destinations surveyed, roughly two out of three will be charging more for ski passes than last winter, the newspaper Schweiz am Wochenende reported. The resorts that have hiked their prices the most are in...

© Eugenesergeev | Dreamstime.com On 16 November 2022, Switzerland’s federal government announced the sums that will be transferred between the nation’s statelets or cantons in 2023, a mechanism aimed at ensuring wealthy cantons support those with weaker economies. In 2023, CHF 5.6 billion will be transferred, a sum CHF 290 million greater than in 2022 (+5%). The total sum is equivalent to less than 1% of Swiss GDP. Under the national financial equalisation mechanism,...

SGS was founded in 1878 to help standardise the trade of goods around the world. Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi The world’s largest goods inspection and testing group SGS will shed 1,500 jobs worldwide in a cost saving drive. The Geneva-based company said on Wednesday that inflation and the Ukraine war are having a negative effect on its business. “The consequences of the war in Ukraine have had a broader effect on our business mix and volumes in certain European...

Dialling back: households would be called on to reduce the heat, if necessary. © Keystone / Martial Trezzini In case of a shortage, households and businesses which heat with piped gas would be asked to lower temperatures to 20°C, the government has said. The contingency scenario agreed by ministers is a slightly modified version of a four-stage plan announced in August, which has since gone through a consultation process involving cantonal authorities and other...

A few days in bed might also help to recover from flu. Keystone / Martin Ruetschi The Swiss health authorities and the manufacturer AstraZeneca are at loggerheads over a nasal spray to vaccinate children and adolescents against influenza. The British-Swedish manufacturer told the Swiss Keystone-SDA agency that it had been asked by the Federal Office of Public Health to introduce its product in Switzerland two years ago. However, the health office had later set...

The role of energy supply is crucial for economic growth in Switzerland according to KOF director Jan-Egbert Sturm. Keystone / Arno Balzarini Economic researcher Jan-Egbert Sturm expects the Swiss economy to stagnate in the next few months. The director of the Swiss Economic Institute (KOF) at Federal Institute ETH Zurich, said Switzerland had been been quite resilient in the current economic environment. “Resilience is based on stable political institutions, a...

Switzerland’s recent vote on state pension reform on 25 September 2022, divided men and women, reported RTS. Photo by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels.comThe vote was split into two parts. The first asked whether the state pension age for women should rise from 64 to 65 to bring it into line with the pension age for men. The second part asked whether VAT should rise from 7.7% to 8.1% to fund a looming pension funding shortfall. According to an analysis by the survey firm...