Swiss social welfare drops for people from non-EU countries
Third-country nationals who had entered Switzerland for “work or education purposes” since 2008 were almost never dependent on social welfare support in 2022 (0.2%).
Keystone / Christian Beutler
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening: Swiss social welfare drops for people from non-EU countries
In Switzerland, 6.7% of the 669,100 people from third countries received social assistance in 2022. This figure has fallen slightly by 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous year. From 2015 to 2017, it was around 8.5%.
Some 44,900 people from third countries received social welfare in 2022, as reported by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SEM) on Wednesday. This amounts to a social assistance rate of 6.7%.
The social assistance rate of people from third countries is significantly higher than that of people from European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries living in Switzerland (2.3%). The rate for Swiss nationals is 1.9%.
Almost half from Europe
Most of the people from third countries came from European countries that do not belong to the EU or EFTA (42.8%), followed by people from Africa (26.2%), Asia (19.9%) and the Americas (10.8%). Some 56% of them had a settlement permit and 42.8% had a residence permit.
Some 28.1% were couples with one or more children, 27.3% were single parents, 25.8% were living alone, and 9.1% were couples.
Third-country nationals who had entered Switzerland for “work or education purposes” since 2008 were almost never dependent on social welfare support in 2022 (0.2%).
In contrast, the rate for people who came as part of a family reunion was 5.3%. Overall, women have a higher risk of social welfare assistance (5.7%) than men (4.5%), especially those up to the age of 54.
The social welfare rate for third-country nationals without an asylum background was 5.6%, while it was 18.4% for people with an asylum background.
Translated from German by DeepL/jdp
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
Popular Stories
More
Life & Aging
Zurich: how the world capital of housing shortages is tackling the problem
In Switzerland more people are being referred to electrical therapies or psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Are there similar approaches where you live?
Is your place of origin, your Heimatort, important to you?
Every Swiss citizen has a Heimatort, a place of origin, but many have never visited theirs. What’s your relationship with your Heimatort? What does it mean to you?
Ex-sect member sentenced in Zurich for sexual abuse
This content was published on
Zurich District Court has sentenced a former member of the globally active sect "Children of God" to a partial prison sentence.
SNB chairman does not rule out slowdown in Swiss growth
This content was published on
Martin Schlegel, chairman of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), does not rule out a weakening of the Swiss economy in light of the tariff dispute.
Swiss NGOs abroad to receive 10% less federal funding
This content was published on
In 2025 and 2026, Swiss NGOs will have 10% less federal funding available for international cooperation than in the previous two-year period.
Swiss parties spent less than CHF1 million on February green vote
This content was published on
Swiss political parties spent CHF 700,000 ($840,000) on campaigns in the run-up to the overwhelmingly defeated vote on February 9, according to the Swiss Federal Audit Office.
This content was published on
Swisswool, the largest Swiss wool processor, is not accepting any wool for the first time this spring. For many sheep farmers, the only option is to get rid of the wool.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.