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SHOPPING

Is Sunday shopping about to become reality in Switzerland?

The National Council has voted to allow certain types of retailers to open on Sunday. Does this mean you will be able to shop on this day everywhere in Switzerland?

Published: 13 March 2024 13:02 CET
Is Sunday shopping about to become reality in Switzerland?
Only the essentials for Sunday shopping, MPs say. Image by succo from Pixabay

By 109 votes to 79, the National Council accepted on Tuesday a motion to this effect from MP Philippe Nantermod, from the right-of-centre Liberal-Radical party (PLR).

Under the current labour law, working on Sundays — which includes retail personnel as well — is, in general, forbidden.  

READ ALSO: What you need to know about working on Sundays in Switzerland

What is the newest motion pushing for?

It aims to modify the current legislation — though not in a way that would radically change Swiss practices, that is, by allowing unlimited Sunday opening of all stores, as is common in other countries (although there are similar laws in Germany and Austria). 

Instead, MPs want to provide “disadvantaged regions” with the same modest ‘shopping rights’ that are already available in train and petrol stations, airports, and tourist regions, where small shops selling groceries and other essential items are open on Sundays.

This means that suburban areas, “which do not have any of this infrastructure and are deprived of a range of services that have become essential in our time,” should benefit from Sunday shopping opportunities, Nantermod said.

“It is difficult to justify refusing Sunday business to village residents on the pretext that they do not benefit from a petrol or train station, or live in an area that is not considered touristy.”

However, not everyone is happy about the proposed move

For the Unia trade union, “this seemingly innocuous modification aims to liberalise Sunday work,” it said in a press release. 

“The motion is part of the bourgeois tactic which wants to deregulate ever more, instead of protect [workers’] health.”

“Sunday should not be established as a working day, ” it added.

What will happen next?

The planned changes aren’t set in stone yet. The Council of States will have to weigh in on this motion, and this is expected to happen in the near future. 

However, Sunday store openings are hardly a new issue — it has been stirring controversy for more than a decade.

But it seems that this is not an urgent topic for Swiss voters, who have been regularly rejecting similar proposals that have cropped up on municipal and cantonal levels over the years.

READ ALSO:

In contrast to the Swiss, many foreign nationals have had to come to terms with no-shopping Sundays.

Quite a few international residents complain about not being able to shop on that day; as one disgruntled shopper shared in The Local’s reader survey in 2019. 

“If there is a demand, there is business! Sunday looks dead with businesses closed – it’s stupid!” the reader wrote. 

However, others like the idea of shop-less Sundays.

“Sundays with no shops open is one of the things I love in Europe,” one reader said. “Coming from a mall culture where all shops are open seven days a week and sometimes even 24 hours is just too stressful for me.

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LIVING IN SWITZERLAND

REVEALED: How Switzerland’s native-English speakers are growing in number

Some Swiss cities have higher concentrations of foreign residents than others. A new study reveals where most of them live and interestingly how more and more of them are native English-speakers.

Published: 23 April 2024 15:21 CEST
REVEALED: How Switzerland's native-English speakers are growing in number

Foreigners who move to Switzerland like to settle in the cities.

This is what emerges from a new study published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Tuesday.

Surprisingly, the municipality with the highest number of foreign residents is not Zurich or Geneva, but Kreuzlingen in canton Thurgau, where 56.3 percent of the population are foreigners.

Next is Rorschach in St. Gallen, where just over half (50.6 percent) of residents are foreign.

In terms of regions, however, more towns in the French-speaking part of the country have a high proportion of non-Swiss.

In the first place is the Lausanne suburb of Renens, where 49.3 percent of inhabitants are foreign.

It is followed by Geneva (49.2 percent) and its districts Meyrin (45.4 percent) and Vernier (44.8 percent). Next are Vaud municipalities of Montreux (44.2 percent) and Yverdon (37.7 percent).

The study doesn’t indicate why exactly so many immigrants move to these particular towns, but generally new arrivals tend to settle in or near places where they work.

Another interesting finding: English language is gaining ground

“If we consider non-national languages, it is striking to see that English has developed significantly,” FSO reports.

“It is today the main language of 8.1 percent of the resident population.”

This has also been shown in another FSO study in March, which indicated that  English is not only the most prevalent foreign language in Switzerland, but in some regions even ‘outperforms’ national languages.

In French-speaking Geneva, for instance, 11.8 percent of the population speak English — more than 5.7 percent who speak Italian. And in the neighbouring Vaud, 9.1 percent of residents speak English, versus 4.9 percent for both German and Italian.

In Basel-City, where the main language is German, 12.5 percent speak English, 6.1 percent Italian, and 5 percent French.

And in Zurich,10.8 percent speak English, versus only 5.8 percent for Italian and 3.2 percent French.

The ‘ winner’ however, is the German-speaking Zug, where 14.1 percent of the population over the age of 15 has English as their primary language. 

READ ALSO : Where in Switzerland is English most widely used? 

What else does the study reveal?

It shows to what extent Switzerland’s population ‘migrated’ from rural areas to cities over the past century.

While only a third of the country’s residents lived in urban regions 100 years ago, the 170 Swiss cities and their agglomerations are now home to three-quarters of the population.

As a result of this evolution, “new cities sprang up, many political and spatial boundaries were moved, and the country became increasingly urban.”

With a population of 427,000, Zurich is still the most populated city, followed by Geneva (204,000) and Basel (174,000).

And there is more: Fewer people practice religion

The proportion of people who feel they belong to a traditional religion is generally falling, FSO found.

This downward trend concerns all religions, but it is strongest among people of the Reformed Evangelical faith.

In six towns in particular — Bussigny, Crissier, and Ecublens (VD), Kloten, and Opfikon (ZH), as well as Oftringen (AR) — the drop was of more than 70 percent.
 
 READ ALSO: Why so many Swiss are quitting the church and taking their money with them

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