Swiss unemployment rate held steady at 2.8% in September

The unemployment rate had already climbed to 2.8% in August, after hitting 2.7% in July. Keystone-SDA

The Swiss labour market is holding up well in a sluggish economic climate affected by United States tariffs. The unemployment rate held steady at 2.8% in September, despite an increase in the number of unemployed.

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In September, the number of unemployed rose by 1,128 people, or 0.9% compared with the previous month, to reach 133,233, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said on Monday. Compared with the same month in 2024, unemployment has risen by 19,988 people, an increase of 17.7%.

The unemployment rate had already climbed to 2.8% in August, after hitting 2.7% in July. In January and February, it reached 2.9% before falling back just slightly.

+ Tariffs dampen Swiss economic growth prospects

Adjusted for seasonal variations, the number of unemployed rose by 1.3% over one month, affecting 139,564 people. Calculated in this way, the unemployment rate climbed by 0.1 percentage points to 3.0%.

The number of unemployed 15-24 year-olds rose by 1.3% compared with August, affecting 13,861 young people; this is an increase of nearly 16% over a year. However, the unemployment rate for this category held steady at 3.2% in September. The number of unemployed people aged between 50 and 64 rose to 36,191, up by 1.0% over one month but by 17.5% over one year. Here too, the unemployment rate among older people stagnated at 2.5%.

In September, SECO counted 213,750 job-seekers, 4,660 more than in August (+2.2%) and 29,377 more than a year ago (+15.9%).

At the end of September, 3,495 people had exhausted their entitlement to unemployment benefits in the month of July, 976 more (+38.7%) than in June.

Translated from French with DeepL/gw

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