Category Archive: 3.) Investec

A recent survey by the Federal Statistical Office shows the overall median pay gap in Switzerland’s private sector shrunk to 12% in 2016, down from 12.5% in 2014 and 15.6% in 2010. In 2016, median pay for women was CHF 6,011 francs a month and median pay for men was CHF 6,830. The gap rose to 18.54% for the highest management positions.

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Between 1999 and 2017 the amount of organic food produced on Swiss farms more than doubled. In 1999, 5.3% of Switzerland’s farm output was organic. By 2017 this figure had risen to 11.7%. In 1999, Swiss farms produced CHF 562 million worth of organic food. In 2017, they produced CHF 1.2 billion.

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A recent report places Switzerland second in a ranking of 33 european countries on conditions in the youth labour market in 2016 – youth are those between 15 and 24. Switzerland’s overall score of 5.67 out of 7.00 is close to Denmark’s 5.72. Switzerland’s highest scores are for employment rate (6.01) and working conditions (5.77), with education (5.36) and smoothness of transition to work (5.52) coming in lower.

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On 28 December 2018, Italy issued government bonds maturing in 2028 at an effective interest rate of 2.7%1. Interest rates like this combined with the scale of Italian public debt (157% of GDP) mean Italian taxpayers spend more on public debt interest than they do on education. In 2015, Italy spent 4.1% of GDP on public debt interest and only 2.8% of GDP on education.

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Volatile markets have been reshuffling the ranking of the world’s most valuable companies. Over the course of the last six months, Nestlé overtook Royal Dutch Shell to become Europe’s most valuable company. At the end of June 2018, Royal Dutch Shell had Europe’s highest market capitalisation (US$ 293 billion), making it the world’s 13th most valuable company, while Nestlé ranked 21st globally, with a market capitalisation of US$ 233 billion.

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Growing old is something that happens to nearly all of us. However, according to a recent study close to one in three people (28%) reported age-related discrimination in Switzerland in 2017. The rate of age discrimination (28%) is higher than sexism (22%) and racism (12%), according to Christian Maggiori, a professor focused on social work interviewed by the newspaper La Liberté.

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Today, The Federal Council, Switzerland’s executive, announced it has approved a deal safeguarding the rights of Swiss and UK citizens after Brexit. The agreement is part of a package of deals being worked out as part of a plan dubbed “Mind the Gap”. Under the agreement, any UK citizen residing in Switzerland before Brexit will retain all of their existing rights for life.

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Heidi Joos, the managing director of the organisation Avenir 50 plus, and others, plan to launch a referendum aimed at introducing laws against age discrimination in Switzerland. Age discrimination in recruitment is common in Switzerland. Some job search websites allow filtering by age, and job adverts sometimes specify applicants be below a particular age.

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For example, a piece of farmed salmon will typically be labelled only with its country of origin, containing no information on what the fish has been fed. Contaminated fish feed can significantly push up the level of dioxins found in the fish’s fat. Mad cows disease is another example of how animal feed contaminated food.

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