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IMMIGRATION

Switzerland sees big jump in asylum seekers

Almost 12,000 applications for asylum were lodged in Switzerland in the first six months of 2015 with Eritreans accounting for more than half.

Switzerland sees big jump in asylum seekers
Photo: AFP/FABRICE COFFRINI

The latest statistics from the State Secretariat for Migration SEM show 11,873 applications between January and the end of June – up 16 per cent on the same period last year.

More people requested asylum in the second quarter than the first, with June registering a bumper 3,805 applications.

The SEM said the increase in the second quarter was mainly down to the higher number of Eritreans arriving from southern Italy.

Weather conditions also played a role, with more people migrating in the summer months.

But it pointed out that the increase was modest in European terms. The Swiss share of asylum requests lodged in Europe had more than halved since 2012.

Pius Betschart, deputy director of the Federal Office for Migration told the Schweiz am Sonntag newspaper online that in the first five months of this year asylum requests were under last year’s levels.

“Then they rose suddenly, and now we have 1,000 requests a week,” he said.

The largest number of requests came from Eritrea, followed by Somalia, Sri Lanka and Syria.

Eritrean applications tend to be successful. “The vast majority of the Eritreans are in need of protection under Swiss law,” Betschart told the paper.

The State Secretariat for Migration expects asylum requests to reach around 29,000 by the end of this year. Last year the total was just under 24,000.

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ANALYSIS: Will immigration to Switzerland continue to grow or could it slow?

In the past few years, an increasing number of foreigners have come to Switzerland, swelling the ranks of its population to 9 million people. Will this trend continue in the future?

ANALYSIS: Will immigration to Switzerland continue to grow or could it slow?

From a country of just 8 million people a decade ago, Switzerland’s population grew to over 9 million residents in 2023 — primarily due to more foreign nationals coming in.

“Switzerland has been in a situation of uninterrupted demographic growth for several decades, and this is explained in particular by the arrival of young migrants, who also contribute to the Swiss birth rate,” Philippe Wanner, professor at the Institute of Demography and Social Economics at the University of Geneva told The Local.

Just in the period between July 2022 and July 2023, for instance, more than 90,000 foreigners settled in Switzerland.

Now forecasts call for the population to swell to 10 million within the next decade — which has prompted the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) to collect enough signatures to launch a national vote in the near future to stop more foreigners from coming into the country.

The SVP argues that Switzerland’s infrastructure — including housing, healthcare system, and public transportation — would not be able to withstand so many more residents.

READ ALSO : Switzerland faces new anti-immigration vote 

This is based on the assumption that as many — or even more — foreigners will continue to move to Switzerland in future, attracted by salaries that are quite a bit higher than the wages they would earn for the same kind of work in their home countries.

But is there a credible scenario under which immigration will slow down?

According to Swiss demographer Hendrik Budliger, high immigration numbers in recent years “don’t necessarily mean the trend will continue.”

Certain things would have to happen at the political and economic level, however — both in Switzerland and abroad — for this scenario to become reality.

These are the main ones:

Fewer people leaving their home countries

One factor, according to Budliger, would be that other countries in Europe that are grappling with labour shortages as Switzerland is “will try to retain or bring back their workforce.”

In Italy and Portugal, for instance, “significant tax deductions are granted” to keep their workers from leaving.

“If more countries create such [financial] incentives to retain employees, Switzerland will become less attractive,” he pointed out.

Economist Manuel Buchmann agreed that  “EU nations themselves need this skilled workforce and are willing to do a lot to ensure that their nationals don’t leave the country.”

Fewer job vacancies in Switzerland

The country is suffering from an acute shortage of qualified workers — the main reason why many employers are hiring workforce from the EU and EFTA (Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) nations.

If, however, Switzerland’s low unemployment rate should increase, or if suitable candidates can be found within the country, then companies will not recruit employees from abroad.

This is especially true as the Swiss law stipulates that a job can be offered to a foreign national only if no qualified candidates can be found in Switzerland.

Anti-immigration initiatives are accepted

In 2020, 61.7 percent of voters turned down SVP’s proposal to curb immigration from the EU.

This meant that Swiss companies could continue to recruit from those countries.

However, if voters decide to go the opposite way — for instance, by accepting the SVP’s latest anti-immigration proposal — then the government would have to implement measures to drastically curb the number of foreigners coming into the country.

READ ALSO: Why Switzerland can’t rely on foreign workers to fill its labour shortages

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