Border crossings – curse or blessing?

The number of cross-border commuters has reached a new high. According to the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FSO), by the end of 2022, more than 375,000 people commuted to Switzerland from abroad every day. In the past year alone, another 20,000 were added, which corresponds to an increase of 6.1 percent. The vast majority of cross-border commuters come from France, followed by Italy and Germany.

Western Switzerland and Ticino are picking up

Geneva is a particularly attractive canton – this one was included 7,300 more border commuters, an increase of no less than 7.6 percent – ​​Vaud (3,900; +10.6 percent) and Ticino (3,300; +4.4 percent). Almost 60 percent of border commuters work in one of these three cantons.

Their economy cannot do without the foreigners. The feared recession as a result of the war in Ukraine has so far failed to materialise, and instead of unemployment there is a shortage of skilled labour. Example Ticino: Every third employee there is now a cross-border commuter.

Controversial numbers

Fabio Regazzi (60), chairman of Swiss Trade Association and Ticino Central National Council, but only partially trusts the federal government’s numbers. Former cross-border workers are not obliged to deregister if they leave their job in Switzerland and go back to work in their home country or elsewhere. It is possible that many people are still registered as cross-border commuters, although they are no longer such.

This would explain why their numbers are constantly increasing. Even during the Pandemicthan entire countries in the lockdown were and many industries had home offices. But also Regazzi admits frankly: “In some sectors in Ticino, cross-border commuters are indispensable. Hospitals, care centers, construction and trade would have a hard time surviving without them.”

Competition despite minimum wage

But cross-border commuters also lead to resentment in the affected regions – competition in the labor market and daily border traffic jams contribute to this. Also Regazzi speaks of “obvious problems such as wage dumping or increased congestion on the roads. The local population is often critical of cross-border commuters». The subject will therefore remain a political theme in the peripheral regions in the future.

Only: the argument of wage dumping is only partially effective, at least in the attractive border cantons of Geneva and Ticino. Because both have long since introduced a minimum wage. In Geneva it is 23 francs per hour, in Ticino it is still 19 francs per hour.

What is the minimum wage good for?

However, representatives of the business community doubt whether this will have the desired effect: even if it is still too early to make a final judgment on the introduction of the cantonal minimum wage – Luca Albertoni (58), President of the Ticino Chamber of Commerce , says: “With the minimum wage, which affects more than 70 percent of cross-border commuters, the canton has become even more attractive for workers from abroad.”

In the low-wage sectors, the minimum wage may have removed the risk of wage dumping, but it is certainly not just these sectors that attract cross-border commuters: they too Commodity Trading Cluster and specialized service companies are increasingly employing foreigners. And they come maybe also for 19 francs an hour.

Source:Blick