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The nine most Swiss jobs in Switzerland

Looking for some Swinspiration for a new career? These jobs are about as Swiss as you can get.

Published: 13 June 2017 10:32 CEST
Updated: 13 June 2017 12:00 CEST
The nine most Swiss jobs in Switzerland
Making an alphorn. Photo: Christof Sonderegger/Swiss Tourism
Swiss Alpine Club cabin guardian
 
Photo: Caroline Bishop
 
The Swiss Alpine Club runs a network of mountain cabins, some of them in incredibly remote areas of the country. Open from June to September, they are usually run by a couple or single person, with extra live-in staff as and when required. Given the remoteness of the cabins, being a hut guardian requires particular skills: fitness, to cope with hiking up there in the first place; a love of solitude, to help you deal with those nights when you have no guests because there’s a raging storm; resourcefulness, to make tasty meals for your guests out of supplies that have to last until the next helicopter drop; calmness under pressure, to cope with emergencies at altitude, such as a guest falling ill. Find out more about working in a cabin here.
 
Velogemel maker
 
The velogemel factory in Grindelwald. Photo: Caroline Bishop
 
Particular to the Swiss town of Grindelwald, the velogemel is a wooden snowbike that has been produced in the village since 1911. It’s still made there today by expert carpenters who have preserved the original design all these years.
 
Mountain train driver
 
The Pilatusbahn. Photo: Christian Perret/Swiss Tourism
 
Yes, there are train drivers all over the world, but not many get to experience the kind of trains and routes that Switzerland boasts. The country has the world’s longest train tunnel (the Gotthard Base Tunnel), the world’s steepest cogwheel railway (Pilatusbahn) and Europe’s highest altitude railway, the Jungfraubahn, which travels through the foot of the Eiger to reach the highest railway station on the continent. 
 
 
Timekeeper 
 
The Zytglogge is a symbol of Bern. Photo: Jan Geerk/Swiss Tourism 
 
Markus Marti has one of the most Swiss jobs in the country. For the past 40 years he has been ‘timekeeper’ of the medieval mechanical clock in Bern’s city centre, the Zytglogge. The main functions of his job are to wind the clock each day and make sure its 16th century mechanical parts run smoothly.
 
Watchmaker
 
The flower clock in Geneva. Photo: Filipe Fortes/Flickr
 
Ok, so there are watchmakers in other parts of the world, but it’s something special to be a watchmaker in Switzerland, since the profession has a long and illustrious history in Geneva and the Jura, where numerous well known watch companies are still based. If you fancy training to be a master watchmaker, look at courses at the Ecole d’Horlogerie de Genève, the country’s oldest watchmaking school, established in 1824. 
 
Hermit
 
The chapel at the Verena gorge. Photo: Martin V Morris/Flickr
 
One of the country’s longest standing jobs, there’s been a hermit looking after the hermitage in the Verena gorge near Solothurn since 1442. The current postholder, appointed just last year, is an ex-policeman from southern Germany. In return for looking after the hermitage and nearby St Martin's Chapel, he lives in the hermitage rent-free and collects 2,000 francs a month in salary. He may be one of Europe's last hermits, but he's not the only one. Austria appointed its latest hermit for the Saalfelden hermitage in April.
 
Alphorn maker
 
Photo: Kosala Bandara/Flickr
 
Traditionally used by farmers to call their cattle down from the alpine pastures, the alphorn is now used more as musical entertainment in local festivals. Creating that smooth tone requires considerable carpentry talent and a lot of patience – apparently it takes around 60  hours to create one instrument. To see an alphorn maker at work and have a go yourself visit the workshop of Heinz and Marietta Tschiemer near Interlaken. 
 
 
Swiss Guard
 
Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP
 
You get posted to Vatican City for this one. Swiss Guards have been protecting the Pope since 1506 when Pope Julius II decided to hire Swiss mercenaries to be his bodyguards, as they were known for their courage and loyalty. To be a Swiss Guard you must be male, under 30, of Swiss nationality, a practising Catholic and have completed Swiss military service. You must also be “of irreproachable reputation”. 
 
Alpkäse maker 
 
On the pasture cheese is made using traditional methods. Photo: Caroline Bishop
 
While during winter Swiss cheese is made on the valley farms, in summer some farmers travel with their herds up to the high alpine pastures. During this period the farmers live up there with the cows and produce cheese using traditional methods. Only cheese made in this way on the pasture can be called alpkäse. It’s not an easy life, and their hard work is rewarded in the autumn in festivals celebrating the return of the farmers and their cows to the valley.
 

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Drug and harassment allegations plunge Bejart Ballet into turmoil

Switzerland's prestigious Bejart Ballet Lausanne company faces a probe as allegations of drug use, harassment and abuse of power raise the question why nothing apparently changed after an earlier investigation raised similar issues.

Published: 13 June 2021 12:07 CEST
Drug and harassment allegations plunge Bejart Ballet into turmoil
Bejart Ballet dancers perform at Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" in the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, on April 3, 2013. credit: YURI KADOBNOV / AFP

The company, founded by the late legendary French choreographer Maurice Bejart, was placed under audit on June 4 over allegations touching on its “working environment and inappropriate behaviour”.

The Maurice Bejart Foundation announced the audit just a week after revealing that the affiliated Rudra Bejart ballet school had fired its
director and stage manager and suspended all classes for a year due to “serious shortcomings” in management.

While the foundation has revealed few details of the allegations facing the two institutions, anonymous testimonies gathered by trade union
representatives and the media paint a bleak picture.

Swiss public broadcaster RTS reported that a number of unidentified former members of the Bejart Ballet Lausanne (BBL) company had written to the foundation, describing the “omnipresence of drugs, nepotism, as well as psychological and sexual harassment”.

Many of the accusations allegedly focus on Gil Roman, who took the helm of BBL when its founder died in 2007.

Roman did not respond to AFP requests to the foundation or BBL seeking comment.

‘Denigration, humiliation’

The French choreographer faced similar allegations during a secret audit a year later, but was permitted to stay on and continue as before, according to RTS and the union representing the dancers.

“We cannot understand what might have been in that audit that would have allowed them to clear him completely,” Anne Papilloud, head of the SSRS union that represents stage performers in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, told AFP.

“The accusations back then were word-for-word the same as today: harassment, denigration, humiliation, insults, temper tantrums, drugs,” she said, citing former company members who had contacted the union in recent weeks and had said they were around during the 2008 audit.

One dancer told RTS on condition of anonymity that it was common for Roman to publicly humiliate dancers who made a misstep, while another said he often asked dancers to bring him marijuana.

“Drugs were part of everyday life at Bejart Ballet,” the broadcaster reported her saying.

Papilloud meanwhile told AFP that the “vast majority of the testimonies I have heard have been about psychological harassment”.

Drug-use had been mentioned, mainly linked to how the drugs “provoked outbursts of anger”, she said.

She said she had also heard a small number of complaints about sexual harassment, although not involving Roman.

‘Terror’

But what stood out most in the dozens of accounts she had heard in recent weeks was the sheer “terror” people described.

Their reaction to what they had been through was “extremely strong”, she said, “almost at the level of post-traumatic stress”.

Papilloud said that as a union representative she had long been aware that BBL was considered a difficult place to work, with low pay compared to the industry standard and little respect for working hours.

But the recent revelations of “an extremely toxic working environment” had come as a shock, she said.

Over 30 current and former BBL members had contacted the union following the upheaval at the Rudra Bejart ballet school, she said.

The school, which halted classes and fired its long-time director Michel Gascard and stage manager Valerie Lacaze, his wife, was reportedly fraught with psychological abuse and tyrannical over-training.

One student described how she had found herself surrounded by teachers and other students who “humiliated and belittled” her, the president of the foundation’s board, Solange Peters, told RTS.

One teacher present at the time reportedly compared the scene to a “lynching”.

The revelations about the school appeared to have “opened a Pandora’s Box”, spurring alleged victims of similar abuse at BBL to come forward, according to Papilloud.

“We have really been inundated,” she said, adding that many hope that “this time, things can change”.

Following close communication with the foundation, the union too is hopeful that the current audit will be handled differently than the last one, with more openness and independence, Papilloud said.

“I think this will not be an audit where things are swept under the carpet.”

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