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IMMIGRATION

Switzerland sees first quarter drop in asylum requests

The number of asylum seekers arriving in Switzerland fell by 45 percent in the first three months of this year.

Switzerland sees first quarter drop in asylum requests
File photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP

According to figures from the Swiss federal migration office (SEM), 8,315 asylum requests were filed in the first quarter of 2016, 45 percent fewer than in the last quarter of 2015.

March saw 1,992 asylum applications, down almost 25 percent on February, said the SEM.

Nevertheless, the number of asylum seekers coming to Switzerland so far in 2016 was still far more than the same period last year, said the SEM.

“The migration context is still very volatile and therefore unpredictable,” it said in a statement.

While making reliable predictions for 2016 was “impossible”, the SEM said it could envisage the number of asylum seekers to Switzerland  rising again during the course of the year.  

In March the SEM dealt with the applications of 2,702 asylum seekers, of whom 875 were rejected in accordance with the Dublin regulation, 609 were granted asylum and 559 were given provisional admission to Switzerland. A further 363 applications remain on hold.

The same month, 847 migrants left Switzerland or were repatriated, said SEM.

Switzerland asked other states to take charge of 1,532 asylum seekers under Dublin rules, and 489 were sent to the countries in question.

In return Switzerland received 257 requests from other countries and accepted 48 migrants in this way.

Under EU migration rules – to which Switzerland also adheres – the Dublin regulation establishes the member state responsible for the examination of an asylum application based on, among other things, the route by which they arrived in the EU.  

According to daily Le Matin, cantonal police authorities are set to agree a set of measures on Thursday to deal with a sudden rise in asylum seekers.

The measures, which aim to coordinate the tasks and emergency response of cantonal and communal authorities, will come in force should Switzerland receive 6,000 requests in a three-week period.

Although Switzerland has seen a sharp rise in asylum seekers over the past couple of years, the figures aren’t nearly as high as in other European countries affected by the migrant crisis.

Last year Switzerland received 39,523 asylum requests in 2015, up from 23,765 the previous year, according to figures released in January.

Close to 1.4 million asylum requests were made across Europe as a whole in 2015, almost double the number as in 2014.

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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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