Tag Archives: Latest 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...

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....

Six out of ten women lawyers in Switzerland work part-time. Keystone / Anthony Anex Women make up half of the highly skilled workforce in Switzerland, but work fewer hours, according to a study published on Tuesday. One in three would like to work more, under certain conditions. Women often opt for part-time work, and the liberal professions are no exception, says the studyExternal link carried out by the Sotomo Institute for the Swiss Union of Liberal Professions...

The holes were caused by tunneling work under the tracks carried out by a private company, which was working on a thermal energy project using water from Lake Geneva to heat an industrial zone not far from the train line. Keystone / Jean-christophe Bott The main rail link between Geneva and Lausanne in southwestern Switzerland will not re-open until Friday morning, Swiss Federal Railways (SBB/CFF) has confirmed. The line has been suspended since Tuesday after land...

The Swiss bank has been fined over CHF400 million for its role in a corruption scandal in Mozambique. Keystone / Ennio Leanza A Mozambique public finance watchdog is demanding an estimated $2 billion (CHF1.8 billion) in full debt relief from Credit Suisse, that is ten times more than what Swiss banking giant is willing to write off. “Credit Suisse’s admission of responsibility, failure to comply with the law (…) and involvement of employees in bribery underscores the...

PostBus is among the new participants in this initiative to reduce energy consumption and make it renewable. The Swiss Broadcasting company SRF has also joined. Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller Some government departments and 13 other Swiss entities have signed a pact to increase energy efficiency, expand renewable energies and make their investments “climate compatible”. The initiative contributes to implementing Switzerland’s Energy Strategy 2050 and achieving a net...

An electricity agreement between Switzerland and the European Union has been on hold since 2018. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally The Swiss government has shared its vision for coping with major power outages in a brochure shared with thousands of companies, the weekly NZZ am Sonntag reported on Sunday. In the absence of an electricity agreement with the European Union, such a scenario is likely if large power plants fail in Switzerland or abroad. Swiss companies could be...

Swiss private banks increased their assets under management to almost CHF3 trillion last year © Keystone / Gaetan Bally Swiss private banks managed to increase their assets under management to CHF2.9 trillion ($3.15 trillion) last year, an increase of 2.8% on 2019. “The year 2020 was dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, yet the Swiss private banking sector still got off relatively lightly compared to other industries,” consultancy firm PwC said in its Private Banking...

Under an extreme scenario, Switzerland’s electricity supply could be interrupted for up to 500 hours © Keystone / Gaetan Bally If progress is not made on an electricity agreement with the European Union, at least at a technical level, Switzerland is likely to face a significant problem guaranteeing electricity in the short and medium term, especially in winter. This is the conclusion of an external report on supply security, presented to the government on Wednesday....