KOF Employment Indicator Still on the Rise Freitag, 04. August 2017 - 09:30

Swiss private companies are more confident about the future than before. Benefiting from robust global economic development, enterprises are more willing to dispense with further job cuts and to create new jobs. In the 3rd quarter 2017, the KOF Employment Indicator has risen to 2.5 points after 1.7 points in the 2nd quarter (revised up from 1.4). The positive value indicates that the Swiss labour market situation is improving after one-and-a-half difficult years. The number of open positions is set to rise further.

The KOF Employment Indicators is calculated on the basis of KOFs quarterly Business Tendency Surveys. In the context of the last survey in July KOF asked 4,500 companies about their employment situation and plans. The fact that the indicator value is positive means that the number of companies planning to reduce their staff numbers is lower than the number of companies planning to expand their workforce. Since companies have mostly implemented the plans they had specified in past surveys, the KOF Employment Indicator is a good predictor of future dynamics on the Swiss labour market.

Industry indicator at highest level since 2011

In the last few months, the KOF Employment Indicator followed a particularly positive trend in the manufacturing industry. Although the sector-specific indicator is still slightly negative (-2.1 points) and a sizeable increase in manufacturing jobs is not on the cards, the indicator is currently at the highest level since the end of the year 2011. This raises hopes that an end to the job cuts of the last two years is in sight.

Aside from industry, employment expectations also improved in the banking and insurance sector and among the other service providers, including information and communication technology companies as well as management consultancies. Employment expectations and assessments were less positive in the retail trade and the sector indicator is still negative.