Focus

Switzerland’s 10-million vote: The economy relies heavily on foreign workers

24.04.2026 – Theodora Peter and Susanne Wenger

Never before have so many people lived in Switzerland. A flourishing economy makes our country a popular destination for immigrants. This brings prosperity, but problems too. Will Switzerland, a small country, soon be too full?

Migrants play an important role for Swiss employers. Foreign workers build roads and houses, care for patients in hospitals, develop software and create new products. Some 1.9 million people from abroad were working in Switzerland at the end of 2025, accounting for 35 per cent of the country’s total working population – up from 25 per cent 20 years ago. Meanwhile, the domestic workforce is shrinking: baby boomers (the generation born from 1946 to 1964) have retired or are about to retire, and low birth rates mean there is a shortage of young people entering the job market.

Demand for skilled people from abroad is particularly high in the booming construction sector. Photo: Keystone

Eighty per cent of foreign workers come from countries in the European Economic Area. Around a million workers have arrived in Switzerland since the introduction of free movement. The bilateral agreements with the EU, which came into force in 2002, give Swiss companies seamless access to the European single market – and allow them to recruit professionals from EU/EFTA countries with ease. Most foreign nationals work in labour-intensive economic sectors – like catering or building. In professions such as bricklaying and floor laying, they account for as much as 60 per cent of the workforce.

Demand for skilled people is particularly high in the booming construction sector, where companies are operating at full capacity and increasing their income. More homes are being built, and the public sector is investing in new infrastructure. The Swiss Contractors’ Association expects demand for workers to continue rising – not least because there is a shortage of trainees learning skilled trades. Thousands of apprenticeships remain unfilled every year in construction, mechanical engineering and hospitality.

Shortfall persists despite training drive

There is also continued demand for workers in the growing healthcare sector, where 188,000 new jobs were created between 2010 and 2020, according to a report by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). Around a third of these positions were filled by people from EU/EFTA countries. The proportion of foreign personnel is considerably higher in Ticino and the Lake Geneva region, where many healthcare employees commute from Italy and France every day.

Challenging shifts – the growing healthcare sector also relies on foreign workers. Photo: Keystone

Over 40 per cent of practising physicians in Switzerland are foreign, of whom half come from Germany. To reduce this level of dependency, the Confederation and cantons have increased the number of places for medical students at Swiss universities in recent years. But this training drive only goes so far in meeting demand, as figures from 2024 show: whereas 1,400 medical graduates received their Swiss diploma, over 3,200 foreign medical degrees were recognised by Swiss employers in the same year.

The domestic workforce is nowhere near able to fill all available positions in the nursing sector either. Since Covid, which stretched hospitals and healthcare staff to the limit, the skills shortage has become more acute. From around 11,000 before the pandemic, the number of job vacancies had risen to over 14,000 by the beginning of 2025. Industry associations report that a third of nurses leave the profession feeling demoralised. It is estimated that Switzerland will have about 30,500 fewer nurses than it needs by 2030 – in hospitals, in care homes and in the home care sector.

The “Strong healthcare” initiative, approved by voters in 2021, requires greater investment in education and further training as well as higher wages, including better overtime pay for night and weekend shifts. Yet parliament is still working out how this can be put into practice, given the additional costs that it entails.

Migrants play an important role in the Swiss labour market. Most work in labour-intensive areas, e.g. restaurants and hotels. Photo: Keystone

Immigration numbers down

HR solutions provider Adecco indicated in its latest Job Index that the skills shortage has been easing since 2024 in other areas of the economy, such as IT, financial services and the commercial sector. This is down to a stalling global economy as well as economic uncertainty, says Adecco.

Economic performance also feeds into immigration figures: almost 100,000 more people moved to Switzerland than left in 2023, the year in which net migration reached its peak. Net migration has been falling since then – by 15 per cent to 83,000 in 2024 and by ten per cent to 75,000 in 2025.

The labour market continues to attract many new arrivals, but not all of these migrants remain in Switzerland for good. Job cuts, high living costs, no work-life balance, or difficulties integrating are possible reasons why foreign workers return to their home country. Family can also be a factor. This was the case for journalist Anne-Careen Stoltze who arrived in Switzerland from Germany in 2006 and who returned home 13 years later.

According to a Swiss National Bank study, Switzerland faces a shortfall of around 400,000 workers over the next ten years.

From an economic perspective, Switzerland will still need to attract foreign labour in future. Otherwise, the working-age population will shrink when more people retire than enter the workforce in the coming years. This demographic shortfall is expected to equate to around 400,000 workers over the next ten years, according to a Swiss National Bank study.

Migrants play an important role in the Swiss labour market. Most work in labour-intensive areas, e.g. restaurants and hotels. Photo: Keystone

Businesses want growth

Without the migrant workers “that the country so desperately needs”, Switzerland risks losing business to other countries as well as a decline in essential services, write the economiesuisse business federation and the Swiss Employers’ Association in a position paper on the SVP’s “No to a Switzerland of 10 million” initiative, which will be put to voters on 14 June.

There are concerns that economic growth, reflected in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), could also slow. Switzerland’s GDP per capita has risen by 23 per cent since 2002 – and this has brought more prosperity. How much immigration has contributed to economic growth cannot be accurately quantified. But there is little dispute that free movement adds value.

Yet there is much less agreement on what impact workforce-driven immigration has on the environment and society. How much growth does Switzerland need to maintain living standards? The debate is ongoing.

Switzerland’s housing crisis is particularly acute in Zurich, the country’s biggest city, where booming demand collides with lack of availability. Whenever an affordable rental apartment comes on the market, hundreds jostle to view it. Pictures of would-be tenants waiting in long queues do the rounds on social media. A disheartening state of affairs. Such scenes have become symptomatic of an increasingly urgent problem in Switzerland.

Photo provided

Anne-Careen Stoltze | Views of a migrant who came and then left

Journalist Anne-Careen Stoltze, 48, emigrated to Switzerland from Germany in 2006. She returned to her home country with her family 13 years later.

“I moved to Switzerland for love. When I met my future husband in 2004, I was living and working in Bremen as an intern at a newspaper. Matthias, who originally comes from Hamburg, was already working in Berne at the time. Swiss hospitals were actively targeting medical students in Germany for placements and assistantships.

After two years of commuting between Berne and Bremen, we made Switzerland our home. While Matthias continued with his training to become a specialist physician, I was able to get into journalism. The media crisis then hit Switzerland, and I lost my job – at the very time I was pregnant. They gave me a payout, but this was the first time I realised how little mothers are protected and how little support parents receive.

Balancing work and family is easier said than done in Switzerland. Both our children attended day care, which cost a lot of money. Many mothers – and, increasingly, fathers – reduce their working hours to look after the family. Given the shortage of skilled workers, Switzerland should create parameters to exploit the potential of its female workforce more effectively. I understand why people are debating immigration and overcrowding. I reported a lot about urban development during my time as a local journalist.

Balancing work and family is easier said than done in Switzerland.

Anne-Careen Stoltze

After leaving journalism, I trained in science communication and worked at the Bern University of Applied Sciences for several years. Switzerland became a second home for our family. Our children, who were born in Berne, see themselves as Swiss. Yet I never felt like I truly belonged. On the one hand, it was because people always regarded me as German due to the language. But I also missed being able to vote and make a difference as a citizen. We were in the process of applying for citizenship when my parents and parents-in-law fell ill in Germany. This shifted our priorities. If we wanted to be closer to our parents, it was clear that we needed to return. I also wanted to be active in politics and civic society back home. In 2019, we moved to my grandparents’ house which we had renovated in Brandenburg. My husband kept his medical practice in Berne, where he now works and lives three days a week. I myself have been working in my local district as an international relations officer since 2025, bringing people together across the German-Polish border.”

Focus | Switzerland’s 10-million vote

Never before have so many people lived in Switzerland. A flourishing economy makes our country a popular destination for immigrants. This brings prosperity, but problems too.

– Part 1: How much immigration can Switzerland take?

– Part 2: The economy relies heavily on foreign Workers

– Part 3: The housing conundrum

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Switzerland’s 10-million vote: The economy relies heavily on foreign workers