Tag Archives: Business

One in four Swiss Airline flights were delayed by about 15 minutes over the summer months. (Keystone) The Swiss International Airlines is among the worst victims of a shortage of air traffic controllers in Europe. About 34% of all Swiss flights are delayed because of issues with air navigation safety or at the airport, the SonntagsZeitung newspaper reports quoting data from Eurocontrol.external link Only two other...

The Zurich studios and headquarters of German-language public television, which radio journalists will also move into. (swissinfo.ch) The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) will shed fewer jobs than initially stated as it embarks on a four-year CHF100 million ($100 million) cost-cutting programme. Some 200 jobs are slated to go instead of the 250 announced in June. The new figure was announced following a period of...

The booming Swiss blockchain sector continues to grow: over 600 companies and institutions are now located in the ‘Crypto Nation’ and neighbouring Liechtenstein, according to recently-released data. The industry employs around 3,000 people in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, as well as many more abroad, says investment group Crypto Valley Venture Capitalexternal link (CV VC). Taken together, the top 50 blockchain...

The growing threat of trade wars between the US and China is dampening mid-term economic growth prospects. The Swiss economy is tipped to grow by 3% by the end of this year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In April, the organisation had forecast Switzerland’s gross domestic product (GDP) to rise by 2.3%. Global economic growth has been downgraded from a previous forecast of 3.9% to 3.7% for both 2018...

UBS is being tried for illicit activities in France between 2004 and 2011. (Keystone) A sweeping investigation into UBS bank, accused of tax fraud and money laundering, comes to trial in Paris today. The bank risks a fine of up to €5 billion (CHF5.7 billion). The trial is set to begin on Monday after years of investigations into the Swiss bank’s French activities, as well as aborted negotiations in which authorities...

Swiss Data Protection Commissioner Adrian Lobsiger say the Finance Ministry has failed to heed his earlier demands. The Swiss Data Protection Commissioner has issued a legal complaint against the Finance Ministry for sending the names of bank employees, lawyers, accountants and other third parties to the United States to assist with tax evasion investigations. The Swiss Supreme Court has already issued a ruling that...

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 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...