Swiss watchmaking sector faces rise in unemployment

Seco: "rise in unemployment not surprising, will rise again" Keystone-SDA

The unemployment rate in the Swiss watchmaking touched 5.5% in September, up from 3% the year earlier.

Switzerland overall experienced a slight increase in unemployment in September (2.5% after 2.4% in August). The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco), expects a further rise, albeit not too strong.

“The trend of a slight increase in unemployment continued in September, as we expected,” Jean-Christophe Lanzeray, head of the Labor Directorate at Seco, said in a conference call, commenting on data released early in the morning.

This was particularly visible in the watchmaking sector, which presented an unemployment rate of 5.5%, up from 3% a year earlier. Weakening international demand, particularly in China and Hong Kong, weighed in, Lanzeray explained.

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“In the coming months we will see a further slight increase in unemployment, mainly due to seasonal effects,” continued the expert, who pointed out that, moreover, the economic situation has also weakened. For the year as a whole, Seco forecasts an average unemployment rate of 2.4 %, a figure that will rise further to 2.6% in 2025. In 2023, the figure stood at 2%.

However, Seco’s unemployment figures do not take into account those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and are, for example, living on savings or on welfare. The indicators are based only on people who are actually registered with regional employment offices. The official Swiss definition of unemployment is therefore different from that of the International Labour Office (ILO), which operates through surveys and identifies people who are out of work, looking for a job and ready to be hired. According to the ILO, unemployment in Switzerland in the second quarter (latest available data) was significantly higher at 4%.

Adapted from Italian by DeepL/ac

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