Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Swiss jobless rate highest since 2021

Unemployment rate rises to 3.0 percent in January
Unemployment rate rises to 3.0 percent in January Keystone-SDA

The rate of unemployment has risen to 3% in Switzerland for the first time in over three years. However, seasonal factors were mainly responsible.

+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

At the end of January, 135,773 people were registered as unemployed, as reported by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco). Some 5,480 extra people were registered as jobless, 4.2% percent more than in December.

+ What lies ahead for Switzerland: an economic outlook for 2025External link

The Swiss unemployment rate rose from 2.8% to 3%. The last time it was this high was in December 2021. Seasonally adjusted, however, it remained at 2.7%, Seco said.

Depending on the time of year, seasonal fluctuations can influence the figures in some sectors. For example, many construction sites shut down in winter.

+ UBS cuts 10,000 jobs since Credit Suisse takeover

Meanwhile, Seco counted 212,803 jobseekers in January. This was 3,779 or 1.8% more than in the previous month. Compared to the same month last year, this figure rose by almost 17%.

The jobseeker rate thus rose slightly by 0.1 percentage points to 4.6%.

More

Translated from German with DeepL/mga

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.

Coming soon Lost Cells A podcast uncovering the human stories behind private stem cell banking's promises and failures. Get notified

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

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.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR