New studies from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Raiffeisen have predicted that hundreds of thousands of workers in Switzerland will be retiring by the end of the decade. The Swiss bank predicted that not enough people will come to fill vacant jobs, meaning the workforce should shrink by 200.000 people.
Experts at Raiffeisen and the IMF predicted that nearly a quarter of the Swiss population will be retired by 2030, totalling over a million people. They forecast that as retirements increase, the number of people entering the workforce will stagnate.
The findings reflect a demographic shift within Switzerland itself: in 2004, only 50.000 people left the Swiss workforce every year. Today, 100.000 people a year enter their golden years, and in 2029, 130.000 people are predicted to retire. If the rate of people entering the workplace does not rise, the Swiss workforce will shrink by 200.000 people over the next five years.
As it stands, Swiss agriculture is the most affected by the number of workers retiring, with 40 percent of the agricultural workforce being over 55 years old - compared to the national average of 23 percent. Public transport providers are also expected to be hit hard by rising demand and an ageing workforce, with 34,9 percent of bus and tram operators being over 55.
The IMF predicted that sectors with rising demand like healthcare would also struggle, with 23,8 percent of specialist doctors, dentists and nurses being at most 10 years from retirement age. The decline in the working population and the rise in the number of pensioners is also likely to make funding social security and pensions all the more challenging.
When it came to how Switzerland could fix the demographic crisis, Raiffeisen experts came to a rather downtrodden conclusion: no measures could solve the problem. "It is therefore to be feared that the shortage of skilled workers will remain at least at today's record high level, if not become even more pronounced," they wrote.
For instance, the report argued that while extending the retirement age can symbolically kick the problem down the road for others to fix, it cannot compensate for the rising demand for workers as a majority of people in Switzerland are already in work. Ideas that robots and artificial intelligence could reduce reliance on human staff are plausible, but the report noted that this solution is a long way off from being reality.
When it came to improving and making childcare services more affordable - often touted as a way of both increasing the working population and getting parents back to work - they argued that the measure would be highly expensive and may not have the desired effect. They claimed that after making childcare cheaper, many parents would choose to have more free time over work.
Finally, they made the point that immigration to Switzerland is at a near-all-time high, and has still failed to plug the demographic gap.
The IMF was more optimistic, arguing that Switzerland could go a long way in easing the problem by getting more women into work. They argued that while employment is high, 58,1 percent of female workers only work part-time, compared to 19,6 percent of men. Female salaries are also generally lower than men’s, hurting women’s career progression and pensions.
Therefore, the IMF argued that Switzerland should make childcare cheaper for those on the lowest incomes, noting that only 20 percent of pre-school age kids from low-income households attend childcare. They also advised the government to scrap the so-called joint-filing “marriage penalty” in Swiss taxes, so that married women are not as penalised if they earn a higher salary.