Macroeconomics

In Switzerland, frontier workers are 317,821, up 2.8% compared with the same period in 2016, down 0.2% on the previous quarter.

Workers from borders increased in Ticino by 0.5% over the last three months of 2016. In the first quarter, the frontiers registered by the Federal Statistical Office were 64’670, up by 3.6 % in a year.

The most significant growth, by 6.5% (1,908) was recorded by primary sector, although the largest number of jobs are in the service sector with a 4.1% increase and 207,830 people, followed by the secondary, slightly up 0.3% and 108’082 people occupied in the branch.

Last year, Swiss nominal wages recorded an average increase of 0.7% over 2015. For the fifth consecutive year, the increase remained below the 1% threshold. In majority, the economic sectors marked a real increase in wages favored by 0.4% negative inflation.
By comparison, the wages increases, negotiated in 2016 by the main labor organizations, referred to almost half a million employees, was 0.4%.

Switzerland’s central bank posted a profit of 7.9 billion Swiss francs ($7.95 billion) in the first quarter, it said Thursday, boosted by gains from the huge foreign currency reserves built up during its long campaign to weaken the Swiss franc.

The Swiss National Bank made a profit of 5.3 billion francs on its foreign currency holdings that rose to 683.18 billion francs at the end of March, a figure larger than Swiss GDP. The bank also made a profit of 2.2 billion francs from a valuation gain on the gold it holds, and 466.4 million francs from negative interest rates it has charged on the sight deposit accounts it holds for commercial banks. The SNB is not required to make a profit, with its main mandate to ensure price stability in Switzerland defined as annual inflation of under 2 percent. But a portion of any profit it does make is distributed to the Swiss government and the country’s 26 cantons.

Switzerland’s private consumption growth continued to remain around its long-term average, survey data from the UBS investment bank showed Wednesday.

The UBS Consumption Indicator stood at 1.50 in March, and the February figure was revised downwards slightly to 1.45. Following strong growth at the beginning of the year (5.5%), domestic tourism fell by 0.8% in February compared with the same month in the previous year. Consumption was driven by solid automotive demand: new car registrations grew 4.8%.

The Swiss National Bank stands ready to defend the franc with interest-rate cuts and market interventions if investors pile into the haven currency in response to the French elections, said SNB President Thomas Jordan said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

“We hope that a reasonable candidate can win, somebody who is in favor of free markets, but we cannot exclude that there will be more pressure on the Swiss franc,” Jordan explained in Washington, on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund spring meetings. “But as you know we also have our instruments to react to such a situation.”

The Swiss government on Tuesday acknowledged the country’s reappearance on a U.S. Treasury watch list of currency manipulators, but said the status would have no immediate consequences, as Reuters reported.

Switzerland met two of the three criteria to be named a manipulator, both in the most recent report and the previous one in October: it runs a material current account surplus and it engages in persistent, one-sided intervention in foreign exchange markets.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported on Tuesday that Belgium has the highest tax rate when comparing 35 developed countries around the world while Germany (49.4%), Hungary (48.2 %) and France (48.1%) are also close to the 50 per cent mark. Switzerland is in the end of the ranking, with 21.8%. The lowest were in Chile (7%), New Zealand (17.9%) and Mexico (20.1%).

The OECD calculated each country’s tax wedge – the gap between what employers take home in pay and what it costs to employ them, including personal income tax and social security contributions.

Switzerland’s population rose by 90’600 in 2016: at the end of the year, 8,417,700 people were living in Switzerland, up 90,600 from two years ago, the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO) reported Thursday. If this growth rate of 1.1% were extrapolated forward on a compounding basis, Switzerland’s population would double in 64 years.

The increase in 2016 was due to net birth-death related growth of 21,100, and net immigration, which added 75,5002. In 2016 there were 85,700 births and 64,600 deaths. Statistics show that a quarter of Switzerland’s permanent population is foreign. Representing some 2,100,100 people, the number of foreigners living on Swiss soil increased 2.5 percent from 2015. 86,700 foreigners left Switzerland across the year, resulting in a net inflow of 81,600 foreigners.