Swiss to cut staff caring for underage asylum-seekers
Children's books in a meeting place for asylum-seekers and refugees in Bern
Keystone / Peter Klaunzer
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Listening: Swiss to cut staff caring for underage asylum-seekers
The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) is reducing its support staff for unaccompanied minor asylum-seekers. It will cut 120 full-time positions at national level.
The SEM confirmed a report by the newspaper ArcInfo on Saturday. The reason given for the reduction is the decline in the number of young asylum-seekers arriving in Switzerland.
“As we are looking after fewer asylum-seekers than expected, we will need fewer counselling staff in the coming months and are considering closing some locations,” SEM spokeswoman Magdalena Rast told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA.
The number of unaccompanied minors in the various federal asylum centres has fallen from 1,500 in September 2023 to 600 today. The decision does not affect the specially trained educators and social pedagogues.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
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