Despite last month’s nationwide vote that rejected the idea of raising the Swiss retirement age, the Swiss Employers' Association is keen to increase the retirement age to 66. This would have to take place in small steps, according to the association’s president, Severin Moser.
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Initially, the retirement age would be increased by half a year, and later by another half year, Moser said in an interview with the news group CH Media, published on Monday. He believes that Swiss voters would agree to a slower increase in the retirement age. A direct jump to 67 is unrealistic, he said.
On March 3, Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected a popular initiative by the youth section of the centre-right Radical-Liberal Party. All cantons voted against a higher retirement age, as did parliament and the Federal Council. The proposal initially wanted to raise the current retirement age from 65 to 66 and then link it to life expectancy. The automatic nature of the increase was a deterrent, said Moser.
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Pensions: how the Swiss voted on March 3
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The results of the two pension votes in Switzerland on March 3.
The higher retirement age is a means of combating the shortage of skilled labour and decreasing immigration. This would secure the Swiss state old-age pension system in the long run. Moser assumes that immigration will increase less in the future than in the past. This is because neighbouring countries are also suffering from a shortage of skilled workers.
“Because we will lack skilled labour due to demographics, economic growth will decline, with all the negative consequences that entails,” he said with conviction. Companies are therefore reliant on employees who are at the current retirement age.
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