Historical collapse of the employed across Switzerland

Sharp decline in employment in Switzerland: on an annual basis in the second quarter of the year, the contraction was 1.6%, or 82,000 fewer people, the largest since 1993, according to a today’s note from the Federal Office of statistics (FSO). Over the same period, the unemployment rate as defined by the International Labor Office (ILO) increased from 4.2 to 4.6% in Switzerland and from 6.6 to 6.9% in the EU. The number of employed men decreased by 1.5%, while that of women by 1.7%.

In terms of full-time equivalents (FTE), the decrease compared to the same quarter of 2019 was 1.2% and affected women (-2.4%) more than men (-0.4%). Without taking into account seasonal variations, between the first and second quarter of 2020 the number of people employed and that of FTEs decreased by 2.5 and 2.2% respectively.

In the second quarter of 2020, Switzerland had 223,000 unemployed according to ILO standards, 17,000 more than the previous year. The share of unemployed people with respect to the active population stood at 4.6%, thus recording an increase compared to the second quarter of 2019 (4.2%). By way of comparison, the unemployment rate in the euro area increased from 6.6% to 6.9% over the same period.

On an annual basis, the youth unemployment rate in Switzerland (people aged 15 to 24) under the ILO has increased from 6.2 to 8.4%.

Also in the period under review, 225,000 of the 2.4 million inactive people were willing to start work but were not actively looking for work. According to the ILO definition, these people are not considered unemployed. Compared to the second quarter of 2019, this group has undergone a strong increase (+56,000 people, + 32.8%), which explains among other things the significant decline in the number of people employed in the face of a rather moderate increase in unemployment, stresses the FSO.

Due to the lockdown, the second quarter saw a 9.5% reduction in the effective length of weekly work per person employed compared to the same quarter of 2019. The decline was more marked among male and female self-employed workers (-13, 9%) and among the employees (-9.1%), concludes the FSO, which in September will publish more detailed analyzes on the evolution of the labor market under the effect of Covid-19.