Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
As I organise my move from Bern to Zurich, I am personally aware of the huge difference in apartment prices between the two cantons. While I am fortunate enough to be able to stay within my budget, a new study shows that many are not. This, of course, affects other financial decisions. We take a closer look at the study below.
Sunny regards from Bern,
A Swiss woman and an Austrian woman who were kidnapped in Niger have been freed after spending over 18 months in captivity. According to local Libyan news reports, both women have arrived in Benghazi, Libya.
The 69-year-old Swiss woman was living in the Nigerien city of Agadez at the time of her capture, together with her husband, who is a Libyan national.
In a video broadcast by the Libyan TV station, al-Masar, the two women appeared exhausted. Sitting beneath a portrait of the military commander Khalifa Haftar, they thanked those responsible for securing their release in French.
“My name is Claudia A. I am Swiss. I am 69 years old. I was taken hostage a year and six months ago. Now I am glad to be free, and I thank Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his son, General Saddam Haftar, for everything they did to secure my release,” she said.
The Swiss foreign ministry confirmed the release of the hostages, posting on the social media platform X, “The Swiss national who was kidnapped in Niger in April 2025 has been released! She is currently on her way back to Switzerland. Thank you to all our partners, both in Switzerland and abroad, who have worked tirelessly from the outset to secure her release”. Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis also posted on X saying “I feel relieved and happy.”
One in six people in Switzerland spends more on rent than recommended, while 7% of homeowners exceed the recommended threshold for mortgage costs.
Rising housing costs are putting increasing pressure on households, especially those on low incomes. According to a survey commissioned by Comparis, 36% of households with a gross income of up to CHF4,000 ($4,850) spend more than a third of their income on housing. This proportion falls to 6% among those earning more than CHF8,000.
According to common budgeting guidelines, housing costs should account for no more than a third of gross household income. Exceeding this limit means you will then be forced to cut back on other financial concerns, potentially even healthcare expenses or retirement savings, Comparis real estate expert Harry Büsser said in a press release.
Seven percent of homeowners also face mortgage costs exceeding a third of their income. “Who can still afford to buy a home in 2026?” asks the news site Watson, highlighting the growing role of inheritance and gifts in homeownership. In 2007, 27% of homebuyers had received an inheritance or gift in the year of their purchase or the two preceding years. By 2023, that figure had risen to 40%.
The cost pressure has led to people taking to the streets to demonstate. Last weekend in the city of Bern, several hundred people took part in an unauthorised protest. Among the protesters’ grievances were the rising cost of living and the lack of affordable housing. Switzerland is not alone: similar concerns and protests are being seen across Europe.
A security vulnerability flagged yesterday in the programming language PHP has forced companies and organisations to temporarily take their websites offline. In Switzerland, numerous websites were affected, including some pages belonging to the cantons of Basel City and Ticino, as well as websites of the University of Geneva and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL).
The issue affects the servers running websites behind the scenes, and security experts warn that the potential danger is extremely high. The vulnerability could allow cyberattackers to take complete control of a website, steal sensitive information or misuse its infrastructure to launch cyberattacks.
PHP is a programming language used by a large proportion of websites and web applications. According to cybersecurity firm Censys, around 55 million websites were running on PHP on Wednesday, including online shops, news portals and digital databases. It is said to be the most serious security problem affecting the programming language in more than ten years, reports the Swiss news site Nau.ch.
The PHP Foundation acknowledges that initial indications of the problem emerged during a security audit in 2024, but it was not resolved at the time. The foundation cites technical challenges and limited development resources as the reasons.
Operators of affected websites have been advised to update their security systems or temporarily take their websites offline until they can be secured.
The National Cyber Security Centre is not yet aware of any attacks exploiting the vulnerability in Switzerland. However, it says an attack cannot yet be ruled out.
Swiss watch brand Zenith is reportedly planning to cut 200 jobs and reposition itself in the ultra-high-end market as ‘a matter of survival’.
Of the 200 jobs set to be cut, around 100 jobs are at risk at the Le Locle factory in canton Neuchâtel, which currently employs 196 people.
There are numerous reasons for this decision: a difficult international environment, a strong Swiss franc, geopolitical tensions, tariffs and an oversized commercial operation. Zenith has posted annual losses since its short-lived post-Covid rebound.
In 2024, luxury group LVMH, which owns Zenith, ramped up manufacturing to supply movements for timepieces across the group’s watch division. This increase in production was intended to generate cost savings for LVMH and provide Zenith with a path to growth at a time of cooling demand for luxury watches.
The main trend is clear: customers are becoming increasingly selective about what they are prepared to buy. The market continues to shift away from more affordable watches towards ultra-high-end timepieces. In August, Swiss watch industry consultancy LuxeConsult published a report based on data from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH), showing that watches accounting for just 1.3% of sales volumes were responsible for 75% of the market’s growth in value.
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