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.
