Switzerland Today
Greetings from Zurich!
It’s red faces in Bern where rogue speed cameras wrongly flashed nearly 10,000 cars that were travelling at legal speeds. The recent false blitz-fest (the camera software was poorly programmed) has led to 6,000 paid fines being refunded.
In the news today: basic income voted out, Sunrise job cuts and a rise in anti-Semitic behaviour.
- Last weekend, Lucerne followed in the footsteps of Zurich by rejecting a people’s initiative to introduce a basic income in an experimental phase.
- Telecoms provider Sunrise will axe around 200 posts following a merger with rival company UPC.
- Julius Bär bank is counting the cost of large private loans issued to Austrian property developer René Benko and his struggling Signa holding company.
- The head of the Federal Commission against Racism has issued a warning about a rise in the level of anti-Semitic behaviour in Switzerland.
Swiss coinage
If there’s one thing people find fascinating about the Swiss, it’s the amount of money they have in their wallets. Even ordinary Swiss people appear fabulously wealthy to the outside world.
Federal statisticians conveniently sum up the average disposable income of Swiss households to give the Swiss Abroad something to regale their guests with at dinner parties.
Unfortunately, there’s a couple of years’ time lag, but in 2021 the figure stood at CHF6,706 per month – roughly the same as the year before.
Taxes and mandatory costs, like health insurance, take a 31.5% chunk out of gross earnings. After these expenses, the average Swiss household embarks on a CHF4,648 consumer spending spree.
This leaves an average CHF1,710 to save each month.
Of course, average figures can paint a distorted picture in a country packed full of millionaires and billionaires.
So it’s worth bringing this final statistic up when serving dessert: 60% of Swiss households have disposable incomes that fall below the official “average”.
Given the exorbitant cost of living in Switzerland, it’s not hard to sympathise with many young romanticslooking for an average-priced date.
More Swiss coinage
Swissmint has produced another commemorative coin – this time to celebrate the country’s linguistic diversity.
Switzerland’s four languages are dutifully given space on the new gold coins, that will set you back CHF25 apiece.
The coin’s name, “Varietad Linguistica”, is a reference to federal support for Romansh, which is enshrined in the Swiss Constitution.
Any thoughts of adding a fifth national language to the coin, English, would no doubt have been dismissed by recent reports of a “free fall” in English language standards by Swiss schoolchildren.
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