Swiss nominal wages rising after nine months
Swiss employees could get a pay rise, according to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). At 2%, the nominal increase outstrips inflation, pointing to slightly fatter wallets.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
Between January and the end of September, nominal wages in Switzerland rose by 2% compared with the same period in 2024, according to a provisional estimate published on Tuesday by the FSO. At the same time, inflation remained stable at 0.2% in July, August and September.
+ How inflation and uncertainty affects Swiss wages
This year, inflation should be limited to 0.2%, according to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, the Swiss National Bank and the Centre for Economic Research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Salaries should therefore rise between now and December, along with purchasing power.
Recently, the trade union umbrella organisation Travail.Suisse called for an average pay rise of 2% in 2026, while the Swiss Union of Trade Unions (USS) demanded increases of between 2% and 2.5% for next year. They point in particular to health insurance premiums and rents, which continue to put a strain on household budgets, even though inflation has fallen.
In 2024, nominal wages rose by an average of 1.8% year-on-year. And, after three consecutive years of decline, real wages, i.e. adjusted for inflation, rose by 0.7% year-on-year.
More
Swiss salaries recover after two-year slump
Translated from French by DeepL/mga
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.