(30.11.2022) Non-standard forms of employment have persisted in the Swiss labor market since 2020. According to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO, they account for 10% of employees. The rate is slightly higher among 15 to 24-year-olds and in certain elementary occupations.
This employment category – which does not include apprenticeships – comprises on-call work (5.1 percent of the workforce in 2020), fixed-term contracts of less than one year (3.1 percent), occupations of less than 20 percent (2.3 percent), and service rentals (1.2 percent).
The 15 to 24 age group is particularly affected: 26.9% of them are employed under non-standard contracts. Within this age group, nearly 9.8% of employees work on call and 13.4% have signed a fixed-term contract of less than one year, which is four times more than the average for all ages.
Short-term contracts are also more common in sectors such as agriculture and forestry (9.3 percent), accommodation and food services (6.1 percent), and "arts, recreation, private households and other services" (5.9 percent). Occupation rates of less than 20 percent are also prevalent in elementary occupations such as kitchen assistants or forestry laborers (9.5 percent) and, to a lesser extent, among shopkeepers and salespeople (4.7 percent). On-call work is common in accommodation, food services, agriculture and forestry, where more than one in ten employees are on call.
Women are more likely than men to work in non-standard contract positions (12.5% versus 8%), but more men than women are employed on a contract basis (through a temporary employment agency), at 1.5% versus 0.8%.
Overall, the phenomenon of non-standard work did not evolve much in Switzerland between 2010 and 2020.
Last modification 30.11.2022
