Government approves list of jobs to be advertised locally

Kitchen staff are among the list of professions that crossed the 8% unemployment threshold. Keystone

The Swiss Federal Council has approved the list of professions for which vacancies must be advertised at the local unemployment office. The measure intended to favour hiring Swiss over non-Swiss people is in response to a successful initiative in 2014 which demanded a limit on workers from the European Union. 

A total of 19 categories of professions encompassing 262 jobs were approved by the government on Wednesday. Employers will be obliged to advertise these jobsExternal link at the local unemployment offices from July 1, 2018 to December 31, 2019. 

The jobs were selected by the economics ministry because the nationwide unemployment rate in the sectors crossed the 8% threshold. The period of calculation was from April 1, 2017 to March 30, 2018. In the future, the ministry will update the list during the fourth quarter of each year. 

Unemployment rates will be calculated on the basis of one year’s data. They will be the average of the rates recorded during the fourth quarter of the previous year and the first three quarters of the current year. 

From January 1, 2020, the threshold for professions to fall into the special category will drop to 5% as envisaged in the implementation of the popular vote in 2014. 

The proposal by the rightwing Swiss People’s Party to limit the number of EU citizens allowed to enter Switzerland was accepted by 50.3% of voters. The government then had three years to implement the initiative, but because immigration caps are incompatible with the free movement of people accord whereby EU nationals are free to work or live in Switzerland and vice versa, the government opted for a compromise, granting preference for Swiss residents under certain conditions.