Switzerland, 10 thousand extra cross-border commuters in a year.

According to the statistics published today by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), the number of foreign workers in Switzerland has grown by 3.8% in 2013. More than half of cross-border commuters are French (52.4%), whereas a fourth live in Italy (23.7%) and a fifth in Germany (20.5%). Around four-fifths of cross-border commuters are grouped in three Great Regions: around a third in the Lemano Region (34.7%), a quarter in north-western Switzerland (23.5%) and a fifth in Ticino (21.5%). Even if the absolute number of cross-border commuters is higher in the Lemano Region, the situation changes if we consider the percentage on the total amount of the working population employed. In fact, in the Lemano Region, as in the north-western Switzerland, one in ten is a cross-border commuter. In Ticino, instead, the proportion is quite different since that cross-border commuters represent the 25.6% of the employees.

The numbers. At the end of 2013 foreign cross-border commuters who worked in Switzerland were 278,500, of whom 64.2% men and 35.8% women. The total number has grown by 10,200 units, equal to 3.8% between the end of 2012 and the end of 2013, with a lower increase compared with the previous year (+6.0%).

In the time frame of five years the number of cross-border commuters has changed from 216,400 units of 2008 to 278,500 unit of 2013, equal to a growth of 28.7%.

The growth involves similarly male workers (+29.3%) and female workers (+27.7%). During the same period, the total amount of the working population employed (according to the statistics of working people) has changed from 4.581 million to 4.899 million, marking a growth of 6.9%.

Sectors involved. The growth of the number of cross-border commuters vary depending on the group of profession: compared with the general increase of 28.7% registered in the time frame of five years, the increases have been bigger in the group of professions “office employees and commerce” (+72.5%), “unskilled job” (+56.2%) and “manager” (+40.1%).

The cross-border commuters often occupy unskilled jobs compared with the rest of the working population (17.9% compared to 3.7%). Their presence is particularly limited in professions in the intellectual and scientific field (11.6% of cross-border commuters against 22,5% of other employed). In the fourth quarter of 2013, the majority of cross-border commuters (61.0%) was employed in the services sector. The industry gave work to 38.3% of cross-border commuters and the agriculture sector to 0.7% only.