Migration Diplomacy
Population Ageing and lack of semi-skilled workers in Switzerland: A new migration card?
Following the economic crisis and the suppression of many jobs worldwide, it is difficult to address the issue of labour shortage. In Switzerland, the lack of workers was very evident before the crisis and will continue to be problematic for the country’s social welfare system for decades to come. Indeed, each economic sector will be affected by the potential threat of a shortage of workers. To fill this gap, Swiss organizations are primarily hiring workers from the European Union (EU). Due to the shrinking size of the Swiss population, less people will attend professional schools in the future and the ageing of the population will impact the demand for semi-skilled workers and the whole economy.
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Migrations extra-communautaires
This Diplomacy Dialogue paper focuses on the increasing shortage of semi-skilled labour in Switzerland and the need to explore new solutions to this labour market imbalance such as through sustainable and planed trans-continental labour migration. The New Aliens Act, which entered into force in January 2008 favours foreign workers from member states of the EU / EFTA at the expense of third country workers. It reflects the intensity of economic and political relations that Switzerland has with the member countries of the EU / EFTA, for instance through bilateral agreements. As a result, the Aliens Act provides access for citizens of EU / EFTA whatever their skills are. However, despite this open access for EU based workers, demand for high skilled and semi-skilled labour remains high. To close the gap in regard to highly skilled labour, Switzerland is recruiting a growing number of EU nationals and highly skilled workers from the United States and Asian countries. However, closing the gap of semi-skilled labour through recruitment of workers outside Europe is not on the agenda of the Swiss authorities but should be in order to sustain Switzerland‘ long-term economic development.