Positive labour market situation in Switzerland despite gloomy manufacturing outlook
Employment prospects in Switzerland will remain good in the coming months, according to the KOF economic research center. There are only signs of a decline in employment in the manufacturing sector.
The employment indicator calculated by the ETH economic research center KOF fell for the third time in a row in the fourth quarter, but remains clearly in positive territory, announced the KOF on Monday. For the fourth quarter of 2023 it is still at 7.7 points, after the slightly downward revision from 9.2 points in the previous quarter.
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The KOF economists emphasise that it is still significantly above the long-term average of “close to zero” and also higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic. Since its peak in the second quarter of 2022, it has more than halved.
The KOF employment indicator is calculated from KOF’s quarterly economic surveys. According to the announcement, the evaluations for the fourth quarter are based on the answers from around 4,500 companies that were surveyed in October about their employment plans and expectations.
Stable unemployment
On Tuesday, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) also put out employment figures for October. Although the number of people registered as unemployed rose last month, the unemployment rate stayed at 2%.
Job search data also showed that there were 160,373 job seekers. That was 6,838 more people than in the previous month, but only 279 more than a year ago. The number of vacancies reported to the regional employment offices (RAV) fell by 1,292 to 45,899
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