Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
tomorrow many women in Switzerland will be marching in the streets demanding equality, especially when it comes to wages.
However, the Swiss Employers' Association has rained on the parade by publishing a study debunking a gender pay gap in the country. Awkward!
New study: No gender pay gap in Switzerland?
There is virtually no pay inequality between men and women in Switzerland, according to a studyExternal link by the University of St. Gallen. The authors of the study, commissioned by the Swiss Employers’ Association and published on Tuesday, reviewed analyses carried out on 461 Swiss companies that use the government’s equal pay comparison methodology. Of these, 99.3% comply with the Swiss Equal Pay Act.
In all, 89% of them showed no gender effect and only 3.3% of the pay gaps between men and women remained unexplained. Only three companies had a pay gap of more than 5%, the tolerance threshold set by the government.
As expected the Swiss Trade Union Confederation called the report an attempt at “embellishing” the real situation for women. It called the study as not representative, claiming it portrays “only a small part of reality”, since it covers only 10% of the companies that have carried out an equal pay analysis.
Credit Suisse exodus: 10% employees left before UBS takeover
UBS Chief Executive Sergio Ermotti said on Monday that around 10% of Credit Suisse employees had left before the bank sealed its takeover of its former rival. This would translate into nearly 5,000 departures, or more than 400 per week since Credit Suisse’s rescue, although Ermotti did not say if he was referring specifically to the time between March 19 and the closing.
The two banks jointly employ around 120,000 people worldwide. UBS has, however, already said it will be cutting jobs to reduce costs and take advantage of synergies. UBS said earlier on Monday that it had completed the takeover of its Zurich rival, a deal agreed as part of a government-orchestrated rescue on March 19.
Summer splash: Swimming accidents rise with temperature
With the warm weather upon us, a swim in the nearest lake or river is more inviting than ever. However, taking a dip to cool off is not without risk. In the past few days alone, there have been several fatal swimming accidentsExternal link across Switzerland.
Nothing affects the likelihood of swimming accidents like the weather. The nicer it is outside, the more people are in and around water. A look at the years 2020 and 2021 seem to indicate this. In 2020, 46 people lost their lives in Swiss water bodies compared to 36 in 2021 when it was cooler and wetter in summer.
While the number of cases of drowning among children is declining, more and more young people and adults are having accidents. Young men between the ages of 15 and 24 are the number one risk group.
Mobile data: Switzerland cements its high price island status
Do you live in Israel, Italy, San Marino, Fiji, or India? Besides the warm weather you can also be grateful for the lowest mobile data rates in the world.
The average cost of mobile data in Switzerland was CHF7.25 (around $8) per gigabyte making it the seventh most expensive in the world.
The five most expensive countries in terms of the average cost of 1GB of mobile data were Saint Helena ($41.06), the Falkland Islands ($38.45), São Tomé and Príncipe ($29.49), Tokelau ($17.88) and Yemen ($16.58).
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