Category Archive: 3.) Swissinfo Business and Economy

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Swiss trade union demands shorter work week

2021-12-07

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2021-12-07

Switzerland’s largest trade union issued a statement on Saturday demanding a “massive reduction” of working hours with full wage compensation for lower and income earners.

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Ransomware attacks on the rise in Switzerland

2021-12-06

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2021-12-06

Cyber-attacks are on the rise in Switzerland with 94 ransomware incidents reported in the first half of the year, according to the Sunday weekly Le Matin Dimanche.

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The highs and lows of living and working in Switzerland

2021-12-05

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2021-12-05

Last year foreign workers in Switzerland loved the quality of life but moaned about how hard it is to settle in. Have they since cracked how to befriend the allegedly surly Swiss? The Expat City Ranking 2021 lists both praise and peeves of newcomers.

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Swiss commodity traders control 2.7 million hectares of land worldwide

2021-12-04

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2021-12-04

Research by investigative non-profit Public Eye has revealed that trading companies with a Swiss presence – or their subsidiaries – own over 550 plantations covering over 2.7 million hectares.

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Swiss banks implicated in trading cartel investigation

2021-12-03

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2021-12-03

The European Commission has ended an investigation of five banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse, who colluded in a foreign exchange spot trading cartel.

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Omicron exposes our pandemic failures

2021-12-02

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2021-12-02

They say a week is a long time in politics – last week we discovered it’s a long time in a pandemic as well. We started the week anxiously watching the rising Covid cases in Europe, and wondering what new restrictions might be heading our way for Christmas.

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Swiss politicians join calls for Beijing Olympic Games boycott

2021-11-30

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Swiss politicians are among those calling for a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in China in February 2022, to protest China’s campaign of repression against Uyghurs and other minority groups, as well as its crackdown on Hong Kong. The alleged abuses against the mainly Muslim minority in Xinjiang include mass detention and torture. The US State Department and several European legislatures have classified the human rights abuses as...

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Demand for crypto stamp crashes post office’s online shop

2021-11-28

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2021-11-28

The launch of Swiss Post’s first “crypto” stamp has met with such high demand that the online shop was overwhelmed for several hours.

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Stable income but higher taxes for Swiss households

2021-11-27

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2021-11-27

The average private household in Switzerland spent about 31% of its income on taxes, social security and health insurance premiums in 2019.

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How Play Suisse made waves among the streamers

2021-11-26

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2021-11-26

In a little over a year Play Suisse, the streaming service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), has become a major player in the Swiss digital landscape, surpassing platforms like Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video. Critic Max Borg looks at the strengths and weaknesses of Play Suisse and its rivals.

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Geldcast Update: Lessons from interest rate problems

2021-11-25

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2021-11-25

The Australian central bank is being attacked by the markets and is losing control over interest rates. Something similar happened to the Swiss National Bank in 2015 with the minimum exchange rate for the euro. But what is behind this?

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A just democracy is a robust democracy

2021-11-24

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Polarisation, social divisions, distrust and inequality: How can people in democracies push back against the negative dynamics emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic? At the International Forum Zofingen, SWI swissinfo.ch asked international and Swiss democracy experts for some answers to some fundamental challenges facing today's democracies. This includes perspectives from Matt Qvortrup, Coventry University/UK, Estefania Cuero, diversity...

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Moving up in the world: could you work from home in the Alps?

2021-11-23

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2021-11-23

During the pandemic, some skiers have been doing just that. But does the romantic vision tally with the reality? It was in May, while hiking along the forest trails and waterfalls of La Tièche, with views towards the snow-dusted peaks of the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, that fitness coach Jessica Z Christensen decided to spend more time in the Swiss mountains.

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How the bubble house movement took hold in Switzerland

2021-11-22

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2021-11-22

Swiss architects were swept up in the movement to build bubble houses out of concrete and plastic in the 1960s. While the bubble movement burst decades ago, many of the original structures are still standing to this day.

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How the pandemic has widened inequalities in Swiss watchmaking

2021-11-21

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2021-11-21

Driven by strong Chinese demand, Swiss watchmaking is recovering after suffering one of its biggest economic shocks in 2020. But the crisis has further widened the gap between the few brands that take the lion’s share of the profits and the rest of the industry.

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Swiss government moots international monetary assistance

2021-11-19

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2021-11-19

The government seeks to renew its policy to support assistance measures by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It asked parliament to approve plans to continue international monetary cooperation to the tune of CHF10 billion ($10.8 billion) by 2028.The existing legal basis expires in April 2023, according to officials.

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Call to tap potential of professional working women

2021-11-17

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2021-11-17

Women make up half of the highly skilled workforce in Switzerland, but work fewer hours, according to a study published on Tuesday. One in three would like to work more, under certain conditions.

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Improving conditions for Swiss nurses

2021-11-15

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Swiss nurses are calling for better working conditions in an initiative being put to the vote on November 28. It was launched by the Alliance of Healthcare Professions, grouping more than 10 professional and trade union organisations. The Alliance wants the government and the cantons to beef up nurse training and guarantee certain working conditions and salary rates. The government says the initiative goes too far. --- swissinfo.ch is the...

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Multinationals and the mirage of paying their fair share of tax

2021-11-14

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2021-11-14

Companies come to Switzerland for tax reasons all the time. Should that be illegal? Jessica covers the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to big global companies and their impact in Switzerland and abroad.

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Google admits defeat in disputed Swiss cloud tender

2021-11-13

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2021-11-13

The Swiss federal authorities can proceed with awarding a cloud computing contract to five US and Chinese companies, including Amazon, Microsoft and Alibaba, after Google dropped an appeal against the decision to leave it out of the project.

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