Pictured left: Demand for skilled people from abroad is particularly high in the booming construction sector. Photo: Keystone Above: This student in Lausanne is making a point to highlight the housing shortage. Photo: Keystone ceived 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. 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 (see page 7). 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. 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. Swiss Review / April 2026 / No. 2 8
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