Zurich (awp) – Shaken by two years of health crisis and supported by exceptional measures from the Confederation, the Swiss job market is gradually returning to a certain normality, according to the State Secretariat for the Economy (Seco). From 3.7% at the start of last year, the unemployment rate gradually fell to 2.6% in December.
“The unemployment rate more or less stagnated in November and December, which is rather atypical for this time of the year”, noted at a press conference Boris Zürcher, head of the Directorate of Labor.
This indicator nevertheless rebounded marginally by 0.1 percentage point at the very end of last year. Seasonally adjusted (CVS), however, the unemployment rate continued to contract throughout the year to stand at 2.4% in December, from 2.5% a month earlier.
On an annual average, the 2021 unemployment rate is 3.0%, Seco said on Friday in its periodic statement. Federal economists expect further easing over the current year as well, with an average rate of 2.4%.
Persistent federal support
Two increases in the duration of receipt of unemployment benefit, as well as the extension of the duration of receipt of persons potentially entitled to transitional benefits made it possible last year to ensure the economic security of persons potentially entitled to unemployment. and subsequently discharged social assistance.
The use of partial unemployment (RHT) has, as in 2020, helped to mitigate the deleterious effects of the health crisis on companies and workers.
If requests for recourse to short-time work have become scarce in recent months, the evolution of the coronavirus pandemic still constitutes a threat for the job market. The adoption of restrictive measures endangers the economic recovery, while increasing absenteeism for health reasons risks generating labor shortages, Zürcher warned.
More seniors in the market
During the month of December alone, the number of young people up to 24 years old registered with the regional placement offices (ORP) has eroded by 1.7% or 182 people to stand at 10,569. That of the over 50s, on the other hand, increased by nearly 5% to 37,754 people.
Men represented nearly 60% of all registered unemployed and there were as many Swiss unemployed as foreign unemployed.
The number of vacant places reported to the ORPs fell by 3,021 to 47,531 places, of which 33,503 were subject to declaration.
In October, the last month for which these data are available, partial unemployment affected 48,264 people, or 8.2% less than in September. The number of companies having used HRT declined from 1,111 units to 7,917, when the number of working hours thus lost fell by almost 12% to 296,1129 clock revolutions.
Still in October and according to still provisional data, 2,539 people exhausted their rights to unemployment insurance benefits.
jh / rp