Jobless figures climb to five year high
The Swiss unemployment rate has risen to four per cent for the first time in nearly five years.
The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) said on Friday that there were more than 158,000 people registered as jobless at the end of October – 3,729 more than a month earlier.
Even more dramatically, the unemployment rate has increased by 57 per cent compared with October 2008.
Those aged 15-24 are still the group hardest hit by the economic crisis, with 5.3 per cent out of work.
"I hope the third economic stimulus package parliament approved in September will help improve the situation for young people," said Economics Minister Doris Leuthard.
However, she cautioned that the overall jobless rate will continue to rise and reach more than five per cent next year.
Switzerland's export-driven economy has been dragged down by decreasing international demand and by its banks becoming entangled in the financial crisis.
The centre-left Social Democratic Party has called for improvements to the unemployment benefit system. It wants to extend the payments to more than 500 days and launch a re-training scheme for young unemployed.
swissinfo.ch and agencies
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There was an article in TIME few months back about the new export from Germany. Can you guess !. It was "unemployed people" from Germany. German government cleverly pushed all the unemployed people to move to Schweiz and Austria, so they don't have to pay an unemployed benefits. That was a smart move. But at the end Swiss suffers. Finally, who cares. The economy would stall, if Germans are not here ! So good and bad to have them here.
I would be very anxious and angry if I become unemployed. However I have met and talked with some people in this country, who have been laid off and they seem to be "enjoying" this special timeoff from their work. They are not anxious nor eager to return to work and they do the minimum job applications to qualify for the unemployment payments.
So please be aware, many of the unemployed choose to stay unemployed.
Plus don't forget that Germans are stealing the jobs from the Swiss too. Just go to any of the major hotels, for example, and all you can hear are High German speaking people... I guess it's the price we have to pay for opening our borders too - absorptions of German unemployed and others to the profit of mega corporations. Low salary offered to these people means cost reduction for the big corporations. We just have to compete with them salary wise but it lowers our standard of living or a more horrifying scene-climbing unemployment rate of 75 percent in the year 2010.