Employment in Switzerland continued to rise in the second quarter of 2026, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Most of the new jobs were in services, while the number of vacancies was also higher than a year earlier.
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At the end of June, companies outside agriculture employed 5.698m people. Of these, 2.388m worked part-time. Women accounted for 68.2% of part-time workers. On a full-time-equivalent basis, employment amounted to 4.435m jobs, up by 82,700, or 1.9%, from a year earlier. Women accounted for 40.5% of full-time-equivalent employment.
Overall employment rose by 111,800 jobs, or 2%, year on year. Women made up 46.5% of employees.
Services drive job growth
Most of the increase came from the service sector, where employment rose by 98,700, or 2.2%, to 4.55m. Industry and construction added 13,100 jobs, an increase of 1.2%.
Vacancies also increased. Companies reported 98,700 unfilled positions in the second quarter, 2,600 more than a year earlier, a rise of 2.7%. Vacancies in industry and construction jumped by 21.8%, whereas those in services fell by 2.4%.
Graduates face a tougher start
A separate survey by the Federal Statistical Office suggests that recent university graduates are finding it harder to enter the labour market.
Among holders of a university master’s degree, the unemployment rate one year after graduation rose from 3.9% for the class of 2022 to 6.4% for the class of 2024. For graduates of universities of applied sciences with a bachelor’s degree, it increased from 3.4% to 4.9%.
Finding suitable work has also become more difficult. Some 44.1% of university graduates with a master’s degree said they had struggled to find a position that met their expectations, up from 30% among the class of 2022. Among bachelor’s graduates from universities of applied sciences, the share rose from 24.2% to 36.9%.
At the same time, employers continued to report shortages of qualified workers. Some 33.9% of employees worked at companies that said they had difficulty recruiting skilled staff, up by 0.4 percentage points from the previous quarter.
Firms plan to hire
Despite these strains, companies have become more upbeat about the coming months. More firms plan to increase staffing, while fewer expect to cut jobs. The employment outlook has therefore improved since the previous quarter.
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