Switzerland Today

Greetings from Zurich!

The future workforce is occupying a lot of thought lately. Will there be enough workers in Switzerland? What type of jobs will be in demand in future? We at SWI swissinfo.ch are thinking about this subject too. So we take a deep dive into the topic. Read on for more details.

In the meantime, we bring you the biggest news stories of the day.

Leopard pattern, aluminium look, classic or transparent red cover? The diversity of the Swiss Army knife knows almost no bounds. Even when it comes to functions. For example, there is a model with a fold-out fondue fork: the Cheese-Master. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

In the news: riot shakes up Bern police, the Aurora Borealis returns to Swiss skies and Victorinox designs a Swiss army knife without blades.

• The iconic Swiss Army Knife could soon feature zero cutting blades as Victorinox adapts to the challenge of more restrictive knife laws worldwide.
• The aquatic research institute Eawag has sounded the alarm bell about pesticides destroying vital life in Swiss streams and rivers.
• Eleven police officers were injured by flying stones and fireworks on Sunday night during a riot at the Reitschule cultural centre.
• The night skies around the Säntis mountain were illuminated by a rare display of Northern Lights on Monday night.
• The number of reported cyberattacks on critical infrastructure almost doubled in the last six months of last year.

AI KEYSTONE

The jobs dilemma

Swiss companies are currently searching for at least 110,000 workers to fill open positions. By the year 2040, demographic changes could see a labour force shortfall of around four times that number.

Switzerland is not the only country worried about the shrinking size of its workforce as the average age of the population creeps up. Bringing in more immigrants to fill the gap is not everybody’s ideal solution.

Employment specialists tell SWI swissinfo.ch that Switzerland’s world-beating vocational training system should help the country keep up the number of workers.

But the NZZ am Sonntag is not quite so sure. The newspaper has seen an as-yet unpublished report from Accenture on the effects of Artificial Intelligence on the workforce.

According to the Accenture study, 48% of employees in Switzerland believe that AI could steal their jobs. And these are not low-skilled, poorly paid positions.

Banks, insurance companies, pharma firms and others are currently testing how AI could ease the human burden on highly complex (and highly paid) tasks.

The conclusions are rather alarming. AI advances threaten not just traditional office jobs but also those taken by people with top academic qualifications.

“As far as I know, no jobs have officially been cut so far in Switzerland because of AI,” Angestellte Schweiz tells the newspaper. “Unfortunately, [future] job losses are to be expected.”