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Central bank confirms exchange rate floor

This content was published on Apr 10, 2012 Central bank interim chief Thomas Jordan told reporters at a press briefing on Tuesday that the bank is enforcing the minimum exchange rate with all the means at its disposal. “We are prepared to buy foreign currency in unlimited quantities for this purpose. In this respect, our policies are totally unchanged.” On April 5 the…

Jobless rate decreases as spring comes

This content was published on Apr 10, 2012 The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) said 162,392 people – or 3.2 per cent of the workforce – were out of a job. The figure is down 0.2 per cent on February. Serge Gaillard, head of Seco, said the latest figures were good news but he added that it was too early to say…

Whistleblowing debate heats up

This content was published on Apr 9, 2012 Despite impending changes to Swiss employment laws to toughen sanctions against unfair dismissal, Switzerland continues to beat about the bush concerning the thorny issue of workers going public with suspicions of corruption. Several cases of whistleblowers getting their knuckles rapped in the past two years appear to demonstrate that Switzerland is no place to take…

Walter Steiger, sole trader

This content was published on Apr 9, 2012 Walter Steiger has boutiques everywhere, including a bespoke shoe shop on Faubourg St Honoré in Paris. The son of a cobbler, Steiger has worked with some of the biggest names in high fashion and today the enthusiastic 70-year-old remains a perfectionist and aesthete. His sons Paul and Giulio are now following in his footsteps. (Isabelle…

Magazine sued for racial incitement

This content was published on Apr 8, 2012 The cover of the magazine, which has ties to the rightwing Swiss People’s Party, shows a Roma child who looks about four years old pointing a gun at the camera (see link). The headline says: “The Roma are coming: Plundering in Switzerland”. One of those lodging a legal complaint is an Austrian journalist who says…

Caritas shops cater to Switzerland’s poor

This content was published on Apr 8, 2012 A bottle of fruit juice? SFr1.50 ($1.63) instead of SFr4.20. A kilo of sugar? Ninety cents instead of SFr1.20. Toilet paper? SFr1.95 instead of SFr5.95. “The products we sell cost 30-50 per cent less than the normal price. To have a point of comparison, we filled a typical shopping cart for a family of four.…

“Dream market” pleases Microsoft

This content was published on Apr 8, 2012 Petra Jenner, a German who has been in the job since October, said in an interview with Le Matin Dimanche newspaper she particularly liked the fact that Swiss customers quibbled less over price than in other countries. “[In Switzerland] consumers are less focused on the price than their neighbours, and they like quality as well…

New light shed on Swiss working hours

This content was published on Apr 7, 2012 The authors of the study, Michael Siegenthaler and Michael Graff of the Swiss Economic Institute (KOF), have used new calculations which show that in 1950, the average number of hours worked per year was 2,400, as against 1,600 today. Previous calculations had put the working year in 1950 at only 2,150 hours, which implies that…

Schäuble warns of German “snootiness”

This content was published on Apr 7, 2012 “I’m happy Switzerland has gone so far despite its legal situation and its traditions,” he told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung on Saturday. “There is really no cause for snootiness on the German side. The Swiss have shifted on the tax issue to a previously unimaginable extent.” On Thursday, Switzerland and Germany agreed on a revamped tax…

Life on Swiss poultry farms

This content was published on Apr 6, 2012

Internal: Archive

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Internal: Archive

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Central bank confirms exchange rate floor

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Jobless rate decreases as spring comes

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Whistleblowing debate heats up

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Walter Steiger, sole trader

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Magazine sued for racial incitement

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Caritas shops cater to Switzerland’s poor

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“Dream market” pleases Microsoft

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New light shed on Swiss working hours

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Schäuble warns of German “snootiness”

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Life on Swiss poultry farms

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