Switzerland - Secondary Industries Employment

The Federal Statistical Office (FSO) has conducted the Swiss Labour Force Survey (SLFS) annually since 1991 (during Q2) with the goal of obtaining data about working life and the labour market in general. It also provides insight into living conditions of unemployed, retired, housewives and house husbands as well as students.

The SLFS addresses professional activity (present or past), reasons why people are economically inactive (retirement, training /education, etc.), profession learnt and profession exercised, working conditions: hours worked, night work, weekend work, professional revenue, household revenue, job hunting and professional and geographical mobility.

The Employment Survey (ES) is complementary.

From 2010, the SLFS has taken place quarterly in order to produce quarterly indicators. Survey participants are interviewed four times over a period of one and a half years. An interviewer from the commissioned institute contacts the households by phone and conducts an initial interview taking approximately 20 minutes. The three subsequent interviews take about 10 minutes each. The SFSO selects addresses to interview by randomly selecting private telephone numbers, including numbers not available to the general public. Since 2003, the sample has also included a sample of foreigners drawn from the Central Information Service on Migration (CISM).

The SLFS was conducted using a sample of approximately 50,000 persons during the second quarter of 2009. Since then, approximately 126,000 interviews are conducted each year. The addresses used in the SLFS are selected from private telephone numbers. 

The source defines "employed persons" as all persons aged 15 and over who, during the reference week:

• worked at least one hour for payment
• or who, although temporarily absent from their work (due to illness, holidays, maternity leave, military service, etc.) had a job (either in an
• employed or self-employed capacity) or who worked in the family business without payment
• Sample size and design: The sample size is 66,000 employment units, i.e. approximately 16 percent of the total number of units in the country, covering approximately 60 percent of the total number of jobs. The survey is conducted on a sample of business units stratified by NACE (2 DIGITS) regions (NUTS2) and business size classes. All employment units in the largest size classes are included in the sample, while smaller units are selected randomly. Most large companies from the private and public sectors provide exhaustive information for all their employment units. The response rate ranges between 85 percent and 91 percent.
• Estimation method: The number of jobs is estimated using a weighting model (with individual weights computed for each observation) and a benchmark level obtained through the Business register. Using a bottom-up approach, the total numbers of jobs are estimated separately for all strata (sex, occupation level, regions, sizes classes) and then aggregated over strata.

Unemployed persons - people between the ages of 15 and 74 who were available for work but were not employed during the reference week or were actively looking for works during the previous month.

This definition of unemployment differs from that of SECO (Switzerland's State Secretariat for Economic Affairs). As such, unemployment totals for the SLFS and SECO do not match. 

Further reading

At the source:

• German
  • Arbeit und Erwerb (theme)
  • Erwerbstätigenstatistik (ETS)
• English
  • Work and income (theme)
  • Employment Statistics (ES)

At IMF (SDDS):

• Employment