BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Federal Statistical Offices new figures for average earnings in Switzerland show women making barely any progress in catching up with men for equal pay. The average salary in 2010 was CHF5,979, but the spread was large: women made on average CHF5221 and men CHF6,397.
Differences are explained to some extent by different qualification levels and years of service, but women account for the vast majority of fulltime workers who earn less than CHF4,000 a month, in part because 66 percent of women work either in retail sales or the hotel and restaurant industry, in jobs with low skills required.
10% of workers, senior managers, earn CHF22,755/month
Nearly 11 percent of workers make less than CHF4,000 a month, while 10 percent, top-level managers, make more than CHF22,755 a month.
The new figures show that the most qualified workers saw their salaries increase by 12.3 percent during the past decade, 2000-2010, while the least qualified workers saw their pay go up by 9 percent.
Management paychecks vary enormously depending on the industry: CHF14,919 in insurance, CHF16,724 in banking, CHF17,156 in pharmaceuticals, CHF22,000 in the tobacco industry. The same level of qualification pays on average CHF10,324 in the machine industry, CHF9,750 in healthcare and CHF8,138 in construction.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Ireland’s employers’ will soon be asked by the government to foot €150 million to cover the cost of the first four weeks of workers’ sick leave, the Irish Times reports. The cost is currently covered by the Ministry for Social Protection, which has been told to cut its budget in December by €700 million. The newspaper reports that the plan would take a year to implement but the savings could be realized in 2013. It adds that employer groups are likely to oppose the move.
Irish workers’ sick leave and pay, Citizens Information Board
© 2011 MSF / Brendan Bannon
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Two women, Medecin Sans Frontieres (MSF) staff, were kidnapped at 13:20 Thursday 13 October from the Ifo extension area of the Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya. Their driver is undergoing urgent medical treatment after being shot.
Dadaab is the world’s largest refugee camp, with 463,739 Somali refugees, more than 190,000 of whom have fled Somalia this year.
MSF issued the following statement, saying that in the interests of the safe return of the woman, it will not issue further statements:
“Two international staff, both Spanish, were taken. As yet, MSF has not been able to re-establish contact with the two staff taken. A crisis team has been set up to deal with this incident, and the families have been informed.
“‘We strongly condemn this attack,’ says José Antonio Bastos, the president of MSF-Spain. ‘MSF is in contact with all the relevant authorities and is doing all it can to ensure the swift and safe return of our colleagues. Meanwhile, our thoughts are with them and with their families in this difficult time.’”
International agencies expressed their outrage. “These MSF colleagues were working to rescue lives, says UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres. “It is wholly unacceptable that they should be made targets for kidnap. I appeal to those responsible to facilitate their immediate and safe return.”
ICRC, the International Red Cross, has been increasingly vocal about the dangers facing international independent aid workers.
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The number of people employed in Switzerland rose by 1.4 percent from January 2010 to January 2011, the Federal Statistics Office says in a report released 29 March. Growth in employment in the European Union during the same one-year period was 0.3 percent.
Unemployment, using the ILO (International Labour Organization) definition fell in Switzerland from 4.8 to 4.2 percent. In the EU it rose, using the ILO definition, from 9.3 to 9.5 percent.
The number of employed Swiss rose by 0.4 percent, to 3.35 million, while the number of employed foreigners rose by 4. percent to 1.27m. Unemployment among foreign workers rose more rapidly and by a greater percentage during the global economic crisis.
Nick Hayek, Swatch Group
Biel/Bienne and Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swatch Tuesday 1 March confirmed its strong forecast for 2011 worldwide watch sales by saying it plans to hire 1,000-1,500 workers in 2011, at its Swiss plants, to keep up with demand. The company added 1,600 new employees, worldwide, in 2010.
Chief executive Nick Hayek told Le Temps newspaper in an interview that the company expects to have sales of CHF7 billion in 2011, up from the CHF6.44b in 2010 sales, and that it is looking to hire 1,000-1,500 people in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Granges, Boncourt, Sion and in Ticino.
The company expects to have delivery logjams, even with the new personnel, for some of its hottest-selling brands such as Longines, Tissot, Swatch and Calvin Klein.
Hayek says that January 2011 was the company’s fourth best-ever month, and it is normally the lowest sales month of the year, and this despite the strong Swiss franc.
Buildings go up, but not construction salaries, in Switzerland in 2011
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Travail.Suisse, a union that represents 170,000 workers in three major industries, says it is “satisfied” with salaries negotiated for 2011, up to 3 percent in some cases. The construction business is the only one where negotiators have failed to agree, with companies recommending a 1 percent increase, turned down by the unions. Travail.Suisse would like to see workers continue to make up for weak cost of living increases from 2004 to 2008, when Swiss GDP rose by mor ethan 14 percent, but salaries were barely increased. Real purchasing power for workers rose by 2.6 percent in 2009 thanks to salary increases that outpaced the minimal rise in the cost of living.
Next year should help workers catch up, the group says, with a cost of living increase forecast for 0.7 percent.
Links to other sites: Travail.Suisse (Fre), TSR (Fre)
The Parliament in Spain has voted to ratify labour reforms geared to lower unemployment in the country. Measures include promoting youth employment and cutting the cost of firing workers. The reform follows an austerity plan aimed at slashing the deficit of 11 percent of GDP in 2009 to 3 percent by 2013.
Working 7-8 hours a day is fine, and the extra hour of overtime won’t hurt too much, but the risk of heart problems rises significantly when people put in more overtime. A UK study that is part of the larger Whitehall II 20-year tracking of the health of British workers shows that the risk is higher, independent of other risk factors such as smoking or being overweight, reports the Financial Times.
Minimal noise, no one to argue with and the window opens: a good place to work (photo, copyright 2010 Claude Vedovini)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – It’s official: big offices are more likely to make workers take time off work, fall sick and in general suffer more misery than smaller office spaces.
A new study of Swiss offices shows that the larger the office space, the more complaints increase about the physical environment: surrounding noise from background conversations, telephones and office equipment; dry or stale air; temperature too high or too low or varying too much; inadequate lighting and draftiness.
Absenteeism and lower productivity are significantly higher in large offices than in smaller one, an additional cost burden for companies with large offices.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The eight ICRC (International Red Cross) workers kidnapped 9 April were released unharmed Friday 16 April, the Geneva-based humanitarian agency announced. One Swiss and seven Congolese workers were taken in southern Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo but released with help from the United Nations Mission.
Foreigners at top end out-earn Swiss
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Top managers’ salaries in Switzerland have continued to rise “sharply”, especially in the financial field, since 2006, and the spread between Switzerland’s lowest paid workers and highest increased, a preliminary government statistical report shows. Well-qualified foreign workers and those with long-term C residence permits out-earn their Swiss counterparts while foreigners with lower qualifications and some border workers earn less than Swiss people in comparable jobs.
Salaries, bonuses for insurers, bankers up sharply 2006-2008
The Swiss Statistical Office Tuesday 17 November issued its preliminary report on salaries in 2008. Salaries remained mostly stable, it shows, with the financial sector an exception: salaries and bonuses both rose, with top managers’ salaries increasing 38.8 percent from 2006-2008, compared to an 11.6 percent increase for top managers in all other fields.
Geneva, a city that gives you more money after taxes, and lets you spend it quickly
Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva and Zurich among the top five priciest cities in the world, along with Oslo, Copenhagen and Toky, according to a study by bank UBS comparing prices and earning in 73 cities around the world. Salaries are highest in Switzerland, Denmark and the US, with workers in Geneva and Zurich having the highest net incomes in the world. The average employee in Delhi, Manila, Jakarta and Mumbai earns less than one-fifteenth of Swiss hourly wages after taxes.
Prices for food in Switzerland are about 45 percent more for food on average than in the rest of Western Europe but to balance it out “no other city allows workers to take home more income at the end of the month than Zurich and Geneva.”
UBS notes that the comparisons are greatly affected by currency fluctuations. London fell 20 places in the cost categories thanks to the pound’s “precipitous devaluation” in the first half of 2009.
