Switzerland relies heavily on people from the EU to fill the gaps in its labour market. A new study shows how significant the shortage could be with the approval of the ‘No to 10 million’ initiative in a referendum on June 14th.
The basic premise of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) initiative is to reduce the number of people from the European Union and EFTA nations (Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) allowed to live and work in Switzerland.
The law would come into effect when Switzerland’s population reaches 9.5 million, which is likely to happen in 2032 – though experts say negative impacts are likely to be felt immediately.
However, to prevent the population from reaching the 10-million mark – most likely in 2042 – the government would have to begin capping immigration at a net balance of 40,000 people (as opposed to between 50,000 and 70,000 currently) starting as early as 2027.
READ MORE: New details emerge about Switzerland’s anti-immigration proposal
Opponents of this measure argue that if it passes and becomes law, the bid would create significant shortages in the labour market.
But just how large would this ‘hole’ be?
Based on those dates and figures, researchers at Demografik institute revealed the likely scope of this shortage.
They found that Switzerland’s labour supply “would drop drastically,” especially if the low birth and high retirement rates continue.
Just how drastically, however, would depend on two scenarios they studied:
Scenario 1
With a population threshold of 9.5 million in 2035, there would be 87,000 fewer full-time employees.
In 2040, the loss would be 178,000, and in 2050, 329,000 full-time positions would be empty.
Scenario 2
If the population reaches, or exceeds, the 10-million mark the labour market would be short of a staggering 240,000 full-time employees.
(All those figures take into acunt the fact that the already existing permanent workforce would not be able to fill these vacancies.)
‘Absolute decline’
In the most extreme case, “16 cantons would experience an absolute decline in their working-age population already before 2030,” the study’s author, Manuel Buchmann, said in an interview with Swiss media, pointing out, too, that “shortages would be most severe where labour cannot be easily replaced by machines or digital solutions.”
“Geneva, Basel-City, Zurich, Vaud, and Zug, in particular, are disproportionately affected in all scenarios,” he added. “But no canton would emerge unscathed .”