Immigration has become a political issue again in the election year: with topics such as the “10 million Swiss” or the motto “Too many and the wrong foreigners are coming,” the SVP was extremely successful in mobilizing its voter base in the federal elections. SRF breaks down the most important numbers: How many have come over the years? And from where? And what are the 26 percent doing in Switzerland?
The writer Max Frisch influenced the discussion in the 1960s with the sentence “We called for workers, and people came.” The number of immigrants, most of whom come to Switzerland because of a job, remains high and causes the population to grow by 0.9 percent annually – more than in other European countries. This is primarily due to the above-average economic growth and increasing prosperity. But where do the immigrants come from, what do they do in Switzerland and how do they differ from the Swiss population?
In the current political debate, immigration is often measured by its negative consequences. The numbers show: The vast majority of people who immigrate to Switzerland come to work – and, according to one, play report of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) “plays an important role in meeting labor demand”. This applies not only to highly qualified professions such as IT specialists or doctors, but also to unskilled professions such as waitresses or cleaning staff. This is mainly due to the fact that “the local population today is significantly better qualified and carries out more demanding professional activities than twenty years ago,” as the Seco report states.
Specifically: Often only foreign staff can be found for poorly paid work. And more than that: According to Scenarios According to the Federal Statistical Office (BfS) on demographic development, Switzerland’s economic growth will depend even more heavily on immigration in the future.