Job market

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Tuesday that employers can ban staff from wearing visible religious symbols, including headscarves. "An internal rule of an undertaking [firm] which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination," the court said.

The ECJ was ruling on a case dating to 2003 when Samira Achbita, a Muslim, was employed as a receptionist by G4S security services in Belgium. At the time, the company had an "unwritten rule" that employees should not wear any political, religious or philosophical symbols at work, the ECJ said.

The headline Swiss unemployment rate declined to 3.6% for February from 3.7% the previous month. The rate was unchanged from the 3.6% recorded in February 2016. The seasonally-adjusted rate was unchanged at 3.3% for the month and there has been no change in the adjusted rate for nine months. Youth unemployment, which applies to the 15 to 24 age group, declined 6.7% on the year which will help boost confidence in the labour market.

The stock of vacancies declined significantly on the month, although there was still a small 0.3% increase on the year and there was a significant increase in new reported vacancies on the month which is also an encouraging sign.

Nestlé Austria has announced plans to close its production facility in Linz by March 2018, as part of an ‘ongoing evaluation’ of its portfolio.

The factory, which has been operating for nearly 140 years with an output of roughly 6,000 tonnes of food products, has been effected by changing consumer trends which have affected demand. The factory in Linz specialised in products for its business to business division.

On 7 March, the management informed the plant’s 127 employees of the decision, and is collaborating with the Works Council and employee representatives to find ‘socially acceptable solutions’.

General Motors will cut production and eliminate 1,100 workers at a plant in Michigan as it shifts production of a sport utility vehicle model to another factory in Tennessee. Most are hourly workers, with about 14 salaried.

The Lansing Delta Township plant will cease output of GMC Acadia SUVs on May 12, Tom Wickham. About 800 new jobs were created in that state as a result – and GM announced in January that it was adding a third shift in Spring Hill.

The tech industry in the city of Wellington, New Zealand, is looking to recruit tech experts from around the world, offering a free holiday to the country for anyone who can prove their merit.

In a bid to supplement Wellington’s technology pool, the city is offering "the ultimate tech career trip" by flying 100 people from all around the world to New Zealand to fill 100 jobs. The Wellington Regional Reconomic Development Agency and Workhere New Zealand are paying for all flights and accommodation for the international techies.

Some 28% of EU citizens who have applied for permanent residency in the U.K. since Brexit had their applications rejected or declared invalid, the Guardian reported Monday.

In the last half of 2016, more than 12,800 EU citizens had their permanent residency requests rejected and a further 5,500 were declared invalid, analysis by the Liberal Democrats found. However, the Home Office said “applications can be rejected for a whole range of administrative reasons including where an application form has not being signed or failure to pay a fee.”

If you find yourself stifling yawns and counting down the minutes on the clock every single day that you’re in work, it could be because you work in one of the world’s most boring jobs.
A list of the 10 most boring jobs was released by employment specialist Emolument, that asked 1300 workers across 14 sectors if they were bored at work.

Law professionals are the least upbeat employees, with 80% saying they were bored at work, and chief executives were just as bored as junior employees. Being legally bored was put down to the repetitiveness of researching cases and rulings in a junior lawyer’s working week.

The number of cross-border workers commuting to Switzerland for jobs has risen by more than a quarter since 2011, the Swiss statistics office (BFS) said on Thursday.

At the end of 2016, 318,500 cross-border workers were active in Switzerland, an increase of 11,300 over the previous year. Lake Geneva (37.2%), northwest Switzerland (22.8%) and the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino (20.2%) remain top destinations for commuters from across the border. In the same five-year period the total number of working people in Switzerland (including residents and non-residents) rose by 7.8%, to 5.1 million.