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Financial workers earn the most

The financial sector still pays the best wages in Switzerland: an average of SFr9,357 ($10,150) a month in 2010, according to the Federal Statistics Office.

First results from the Swiss Earnings Structure Survey show that the gross median wage over all sectors – with an equal number of workers above and below – was SFr5,979 a month last year.

The mean for women, SFr5,221, was 18.4 per cent lower than that for men, SFr6,397.

From 2000 to 2010, earnings for the most highly skilled jobs rose more than those paid for the least-skilled jobs, it said. The percentage of jobs paying a gross monthly wage of less than SFr4,000 was 10.7 per cent.

The wage gap between men and women decreased on average by 0.9 percentage points between 2008 and 2010. Nearly one in three employees (30.6 per cent) receives a bonus.

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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR