Employment in Switzerland up slightly at end of 2024

For the period under review, Swiss companies accounted for a total of 5.5 million jobs, 48,300 more (+0.9%) than a year earlier. Keystone-SDA

Total employment in Switzerland, excluding agriculture, rose by 0.9% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2024, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) reported on Monday. Businesses, however, are less positive about the outlook.

Companies reported 17.1% fewer vacancies than a year earlier, as they found it slightly less difficult to recruit qualified personnel, the FSO said in a press release. This decline affected both the secondary sector (-17.5%) and the tertiary sector (-17%). Vacancies accounted for 1.6% of all jobs, or 1.9% in the secondary sector and 1.5% in the tertiary sector.

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For the period under review, Swiss companies accounted for a total of 5.5 million jobs, 48,300 more (+0.9%) than a year earlier. The proportion of women in the workforce was 46.7%.

At the end of December 2024, 2.3 million people were working part-time, 69.3% of them women. In terms of full-time jobs, the volume of employment reached 4.3 million, up by 40,800 full-time equivalents (+1%) year-on-year.

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Employment in the secondary sector (industry and construction) rose slightly (+6,700 positions or +0.6%) year-on-year to 1.1 million. Employment in the tertiary sector (services) rose by 41,600 (+1%) to 4.4 million.

Fewer recruitment difficulties

According to seasonally-adjusted figures, the number of jobs in the business sector rose by 6,500 (+0.1%) in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared with the previous quarter. Employment levels thus increased by 600 positions in the secondary sector (+0.1%) and by 5,800 positions (+0.1%) in the tertiary sector.

Difficulties in recruiting qualified personnel, weighted by the number of jobs, eased somewhat. Year-on-year, they fell by 2.5 percentage points to 37.6%.

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Employment forecasts are slightly less optimistic. Companies planning to increase their headcount in the short term accounted for 11.7%, compared with 12.5% in 2023, and those planning to reduce it accounted for 4.7%, compared with 4% a year earlier. The Employment Outlook indicator fell slightly year-on-year, from -0.9% to 1.04%.

Translated from French with DeepL/gw

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