Top Swiss CEOs earn 143 times more than lowest paid staff

Unia: Gap between highest and lowest wages is widening Keystone-SDA

Last year, Switzerland's top managers earned on average 143 times more than their lowest paid employees. According to a study by the trade union Unia, the pay gap continues to widen.

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In 2022, the pay gap was still 1:139, Unia wrote on Monday in the wage study, which was published on the occasion of a campaign near the Bern office of the Swiss Employers’ Association. The union found the biggest difference of 1:267 at the major bank UBS.

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UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti earned CHF14.4 million in nine months, or CHF84,000 per working day. According to Unia, this would have amounted to CHF19.2 million for the year as a whole, 50% more than the previous UBS CEO Ralph Hamers.

Ermotti earned 1.5 times more in one day than the lowest-paid person at UBS earns in a year.

CEOs and shareholders enriched

Overall, the highest salaries continued to rise: five CEOs earned more than CHF10 million. Vasant Narasimhan from Novartis, for example, earned CHF16.2 million. This means that his salary has almost doubled compared to the previous year. In third place, outgoing Nestlé CEO , Ulf Mark Schneider, received CHF11.2 million, almost a million more than in the previous year.

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Shareholders also benefited from the profits of the largest Swiss companies. A total of CHF45 billion in dividends was distributed to shareholders, compared to CHF44.3 billion in the previous year. Roche and Nestlé alone paid out CHF8 billion each. Shareholders also benefited from share buybacks.

Unions call for better wages

This shows that there is actually more than enough money to raise the lowest wages, Unia said. However, these have barely moved. On the contrary: due to the increased cost of living – such as health insurance premiums and rents – they have lost even more value. The same also applies to average wages adjusted for inflation.

A week ago, the employees’ umbrella organization Travail Suisse had already called for significant wage increases of up to 4% for the coming year. Unia plans to hold a large wage demonstration in Bern on September 21.

For the study, the union examined wages in the 36 largest companies in Switzerland.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

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