Temporary Work in Switzerland
The temporary recruitment sector reflects the situation in the labor market, and temporary recruitment agencies are generally the first to know about economic developments, skills shortages and new labor market trends. For this and other reasons, it’s interesting to take a closer look at who is working on a termporary basis in Switzerland and where their career takes them afterwards, contradicting and confirming a number of clichés in the process.
«Oiling the Gears of the Swiss economy»
Temporary workers are employed in all sectors of the Swiss economy, and their flexibility and expertise help to boost Switzerland’s economic competitiveness. Temporary workers are distributed across various sectors: 58% work in the services sector, 26% in industry, 15% in construction industry and 1% in agriculture and forestry.
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Sources and Methods
In October and November 2022, swissstaffing commissioned the market and social research institute gfs-zürich to survey 6012 temporary workers who worked in Switzerland in 2021 on a temporary basis. Participants were employees of large and small staffing companies, including five of the largest swissstaffing members. In total, approximately 72,000 employees received letters. The response rate was a good 8%. The figures and observations were weighted with the response per company. The survey was conducted in German, French, Italian, English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
(The survey can be regarded as representative of large staffing service providers’ temporary workers. Employees of small staffing providers are underrepresented. In recent years, large staffing service providers’ activity in construction has declined in favor of small and medium-sized companies. Therefore, the construction sector is underrepresented in the figures.)
