Swiss wage negotiations weighed by tariff fears

Pay negotiations: the 2026 vintage looks slim Keystone-SDA

Trade barriers and anaemic inflation in Switzerland will weigh heavily on wage negotiations for 2026, UBS bank warned in its annual survey of employers.

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Nominal wage increases are likely to remain the norm, but are likely to plateau at around 1%, compared with 1.4% in 2025.

While IT and telecoms employees will be the lucky ones, with an average increase of 1.7%, the watch and jewellery sector is likely to have to make do with 0.4%.

+ Unions and employers have wildly different pay expectations

“The watch and jewellery sector is clearly affected by the US tariffs, but also by weak demand in Asia, particularly China,” explained James Mazeau, economist at UBS.

The overwhelming majority of other sectors, from metallurgy to tourism, construction and retail, are in line with the national average.

Taking inflation into account, real wage growth is likely to slow to 0.5%, after 1.2% this year.

Generally speaking, exporting companies are expecting an average increase of 0.2% in real terms, while their counterparts focusing on the domestic market are talking more in terms of 0.5%.

Translated from French by DeepL/mga

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