Swiss unemployment rate rises to 2.9% in October

Unemployment rate rises to 2.9 per cent in October Keystone-SDA

The Swiss unemployment rate continued to rise in October, from 2.8% to 2.9%. Adjusted for seasonal factors, it remained at 3%.

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At the end of October, a total of 135,212 people were registered as unemployed in the regional employment centres (RAV), as reported by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) on Thursday. This was 1,979 more people than in September.

According to Seco, a large part of this increase is due to seasonal effects. Seasonally adjusted, the number of unemployed only increased by 653.

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The number of jobseekers also increased. It rose by 5946 to 219,696 people. As a result, the jobseeker rate rose from 4.5% to 4.7%.

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On the other hand, the number of vacancies registered with the RAV fell. It fell by a whopping 6.4% to 34,995.

Seco publishes data on short-time work with a time lag: at the end of July, 7981 people were affected by short-time work in Switzerland. This was 27.7% fewer than in June. The number of affected company departments fell by just under 32% to 482.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

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