blue News and Keystone-ATS give you a first glimpse of the news, with the latest news unearthed in the press. Without forgetting birthdays and the saying of the day!
Switzerland weather flash
Time for hours to come – in the blink of an eye!
13.01.2025
Today’s highlights
Football: Swiss Football Night will crown the best player in the Super League in 2024 on Monday evening.
FESTIVITIES: Le Landeron (NE) starts Monday at 2:00 p.m. the celebrations for its 700th anniversary. A living picture and songs will be presented by the 700 students from primary and secondary schools.
NUCLEAR: Talks on the Iranian nuclear program between, on the one hand, Tehran and, on the other, Germany, France and the United Kingdom are to be held on Monday in Geneva, a week before taking office of the new American president Donald Trump.
Pension funds: a profit of 90 billion
Swiss pension funds earned 90 billion francs in 2024, or double the AHV pensions paid each year, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung noted on Monday based on an estimate from the consulting company Complementa. Active people thus obtain an average interest rate of 4% for 2024 on their assets.
Employees of UBS and the Sulzer industrial group are among the best paid, with an interest rate of 9%. On the other hand, federal civil servants only receive an interest subsidy of 1.5%.
6.2 billion francs in covid loans remain to be repaid
Five years after the start of the crisis caused by the coronavirus, almost half of covid loans remain to be repaid in Switzerland, Le Temps noted on Monday.
Of the 16.9 billion francs of transitional credits guaranteed by the Confederation, 6.2 billion francs of credits were still outstanding on December 18, 2024, according to data from the Federal Department of the Economy, Education and Development. research and the Federal Department of Finance.
As for the number of loans awaiting repayment, 66,695 out of a total of 137,870 are still in progress, or 48.3%. These loans must be fully amortized by 2030. Certain sectors, including catering, are struggling to repay them.
Regulations on spawning notes
The regulation on expense reports on which the unions crystallize their opposition to the new agreement between Switzerland and the European Union (EU) only concerns 0.3% of jobs in Switzerland, calculated Monday 24 Hours and the Tribune de Genève , based on 2023 data from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
That year, fewer than 17,000 posted workers were affected by the regulations, according to newspapers, which compare them to the 5.2 million employees in Switzerland. “If we allow dumping, it will explode,” replied the president of the Swiss Trade Union (USS) Pierre-Yves Maillard in the newspapers. “It is because equivalence of working conditions is imposed in Switzerland that posted work remains in controlled proportions,” adds the man who is also an advisor to the States (PS/VD).
Wage dumping
Echoing Mr. Maillard, the director of the Swiss Employers’ Union Roland Müller discusses in Monday’s Aargauer Zeitung, Luzerner Zeitung and St. Galler Tagblatt several avenues for preventing wage dumping in Switzerland within the framework of the new agreements Europeans.
He proposes banning work from companies that do not respect Swiss rules. Another instrument would be the blocking of payments by principals in Switzerland to European companies which practice wage dumping, he adds.
Discussions between the social partners and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) also concern technical questions, such as that of the proportionality of the measures, he continues. “I assume that we will find solutions in many areas.”
Birthdays and jubilees
– One year ago (2024): Lai Ching-te, candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, pro-independence), wins the presidential election in Taiwan. Outgoing vice-president, Mr. Lai was considered by China to be a “serious danger”.
– 25 years ago (2000): Bill Gates leaves the management of Microsoft, while remaining president of Microsoft Corp. with which he became one of the richest men in the world.
– 25 years ago (2000): a team of surgeons led by Professor Jean-Michel Dubernard carried out, in Lyon, the first transplant of both hands and the lower part of the forearms. The operation, which lasted 17 hours, required the participation of around fifty specialists.
– 110 years ago (1915): an earthquake killed 30,000 people in Allezzano, near L’Aquila, in central Italy.
– 130 years ago (1895): birth of the Zurich writer and translator Rudolf Jakob Humm (“Das Linsengericht”). He notably translated into German certain works by Balzac, Denis de Rougemon and Monique Saint-Hélier. He died in 1977.
Saying of the day
“Sun on Saint-Hilaire day, bring in some wood for your winter.”
