Tag Archives: 3) Swiss Markets and News

© Keystone / Gaetan Bally Switzerland’s largest trade union issued a statement on Saturday demanding a “massive reduction” of working hours with full wage compensation for lower and income earners. “Nowhere in Europe do people work as hard as in Switzerland. At present, employees work an average of 41.7 hours per week in a full-time job,” the union noted in a statement after its 66 delegates met in the Swiss capital, Bern. While the number of hours worked has...

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that threatens to publish or freeze access to data or a computer system until the victim pays a ransom fee to the attacker. Keystone / Ronald Wittek Cyber-attacks are on the rise in Switzerland with 94 ransomware incidents reported in the first half of the year, according to the Sunday weekly Le Matin Dimanche. The source of that figure is the network supporting investigations against digital crime (NEDIK) but the president...

The Ferris wheel in front of Lausanne Cathedral. Almost all expats are happy with the city’s urban environment Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott Last year foreign workers in Switzerland loved the quality of life but moaned about how hard it is to settle in. Have they since cracked how to befriend the allegedly surly Swiss? The Expat City Ranking 2021 lists both praise and peeves of newcomers. It’s good news for Basel, which has improved from 24th to 9th in this year’s...

© Giuseppe De Filippo | Dreamstime.com The latest Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey of the prices of 200 goods and services in 173 cities placed both Geneva and Zurich in the top 10 most expensive cities in 2021. Overall, the cost of living across these 173 cities has risen by an average of 3.5%, the highest inflation seen in the last 5 years. This compares with inflation of just 1.9% in 2020 and 2.8% in 2019. Supply-chain problems, as well as exchange-rate...

The preference is for “flex crops” like sugarcane that have multiple uses, as well as the potential for mechanisation of cultivation. Keystone / Andre Penner Research by investigative non-profit Public Eye has revealed that trading companies with a Swiss presence – or their subsidiaries – own over 550 plantations covering over 2.7 million hectares. These companies buy and sell commodities like sugar, soy and palm oil from trading offices in Geneva or Zug and include...

The EU Commissioner for competition policy, Margrethe Vestager. Keystone / Olivier Hoslet The European Commission has ended an investigation of five banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse, who colluded in a foreign exchange spot trading cartel. The total fines announced on Thursday came to €344 million (CHF359 million), with British bank HSBC taking the biggest hit of €174 million. UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, escaped a potential fine of €94 million since it...

They say a week is a long time in politics – last week we discovered it’s a long time in a pandemic as well. We started the week anxiously watching the rising Covid cases in Europe, and wondering what new restrictions might be heading our way for Christmas. At the same time here in Geneva journalists were preparing for a special session of the World Health Assembly, swiftly followed by a ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Both meetings were...

© Wolfgang Spitzbart _ Dreamstime.com According to poll results published over the weekend, 53% of those surveyed in Switzerland were in favour of making Covid-19 vaccinations compulsory, a percentage that rose to 69% for those working in the health sector, reported 20 Minutes. Overall, the percentage supporting compulsory vaccination was higher in German-speaking Switzerland (53.4%) than among French speakers (50.2%). The largest variation was across age groups....

© Petrina Calabalic | Dreamstime.com The gross mean household income in Switzerland was CHF 114,984 (US$ 125,000) in 2019, according to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Overall, 40% of households in Switzerland had income over this mean while 60% brought in less. 73% of this income came from working, 23% came from pensions, welfare and household transfers such as alimony, and 4% from investment income. In many places an income this high would offer a life of...

A total of 175,000 stamps will be issued, with 65,000 copies of the most common digital design but just 50 of the rarest SwissPost/Gregor Forster The launch of Swiss Post’s first “crypto” stamp has met with such high demand that the online shop was overwhelmed for several hours. Sales of the “Swiss Crypto Stamp” started at 6am on Thursday. Demand was very high, which had “temporarily led to technical problems on postshop.ch”, the Swiss Post told the AWP news agency....