(06.07.2022) The total number of hours worked in Switzerland has risen. According to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), it increased by 2.5% between 2020 and 2021 to 7.798bn, approaching pre-pandemic levels (7.903 in 2019 and 7.857 in 2018).
Every region of the country has seen an increase in the absolute number of hours worked. In relative terms, Ticino is by far the region with the most significant rise, increasing from 326 million hours in 2020 to 357 million hours in 2021 (+9.5%). Next in line are the Lake Geneva region (+3.8%), the Espace Mittelland (+3.7%), and North-Western Switzerland (+2.6%). Zurich (+0.2%) and Eastern Switzerland (+0.1%) close the gap.
However, the primary sector (agriculture and forestry) saw a year-on-year decline in the number of hours worked, from 276 million to 258 million (-6.5%). The secondary (+2.7%) and tertiary (+2.9%) sectors offset this decline easily, as together they accounted for 96.7% of the total volume of work (compared with 3.3% for the primary sector) at a national level.
Among the subsectors with the most hours worked in 2021 were industrial activity and energy production (1.217 billion hours, +3.6%), human health and social work, which passed the 1 billion hours mark for the first time (1.009 billion, +3.8%), trade and repair (942 million hours, +3.3%), and professional, scientific and technical activities (725 million hours, +4.2%).
Last modification 06.07.2022
