Tag Archives: Society

Healthcare is one of the key job sectors of the future, analysts say. Retiring baby-boomers and a shifting job market could mean a shortfall of up to 500,000 workers in Switzerland over the next decade, UBS forecasts. The bank proposes plugging the hole not only by immigration, but also by boosting more old and female workers. Basing its projections on long-term employment statistics, the bank says that the number of...

Dancing, the federal health office says, is a good way to keep off the weight. Swiss seniors are much more likely to be overweight that other age categories, new statistics from the Federal Office for Public Health (FOPH) show. Some 53% of over-65-year-olds have a body mass index judged to be too high (over 25 on the BMI scale), according to the statistics released on Tuesday by the FOPHexternal link. Older men are more...

One million dollars in Switzerland won’t buy you a mansion, but it’s not bad. Switzerland is home to the fourth-largest number of dollar millionaire households, according to a report by the Boston Consultancy Group (BCG). Worldwide, the number of such millionaires continues to rise. There are now some 500,000 millionaire households in Switzerland, BCG said, putting the Swiss in fourth place behind the US (around 15...

The number of Swiss Abroad citizens grew by 1.1% to reach 760,200 at the end of last year. Most live in neighbouring countries and in the United States. The expatriate community accounts for 10.6% of the total number of Swiss nationals, according to official statisticsexternal link published on Thursday. Nearly three-quarters of the Swiss Abroad have dual nationality. The most significant increase compared with 2017...

A doctor’s visit – patients have to cover a level of costs before the health insurance pays in Switzerland (© Keystone / Christian Beutler) Patients will not have to pay out extra money for health services before the health insurance covers the costs, after parliament surprisingly threw out the controversial proposal on Friday. In a previous decision earlier this month, parliament had agreed to increase the deductible...

A Spitex employee checks on an old lady at her home in Biel, northwestern Switzerland Better at home than in a home: almost 350,000 people made use of assistance and home-care services (Spitex) last year, 10,000 more than in 2016. In contrast, the number of residents of old-age and nursing homes remained constant at 149,000, 15% of them for a short stay. Spitexexternal link, a Swiss non-profit organisation that provides...

Interior Minister Alain Berset was more successful at convincing Swiss abroad of his reforms than those at home (Keystone) - Click to enlarge Unlike their compatriots in Switzerland, Swiss voters who live abroad came out massively in favour of a wide-ranging overhaul of Switzerland’s old-age pension scheme. Eleven of Switzerland’s 26 cantons count the votes of Swiss expats separately. An analysis of Sunday’s...

After last year’s vote to speed up procedures in national centres, the government now plans to cut subsidies for rejected asylum seekers. (Keystone) The government wants to cut its financial contributions to asylum seekers as part of efforts to tighten the asylum procedure in Switzerland. The payments for individuals, currently around CHF6,000 ($6,312), could be reduced by a third, according to the Swiss News Agency....

The Swiss Sovereign Money Initiative targets the Swiss banks, that already today are quite conservative in giving new loans.  It fails to target the real responsible of the massive Swiss money creation, the Swiss National Bank. “If you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.” –Josiah Stamp Isaac Davis, Staff...