Many of its high-quality products ranging from watches, chocolate and medicines to solar cells and machinery, look better positioned to weather the downturn than other branches such as Germany’s and America’s car industry. The 7.6 million Swiss are among the world’s highest per capita earners and the country of snow-capped mountains and crystal-clear lakes tops international rankings when it comes to quality of life as well as economic competitiveness.Įven 18 months into the crisis, the country is close to full-employment with a jobless rate of just 2.7 percent. “The recession in Switzerland will be less deep than in the euro area,” said Andres Fuentes, the Organization for Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) expert for Switzerland. The Swiss economy has grown faster than the euro zone over the last five years and while the Swiss government sees the economy shrinking by 0.8 percent next year, many forecasts for the euro zone and the United States are much more depressing. “They are now well placed to weather the recession and to be at the forefront in the next recovery.” “Switzerland has got almost everything right over the last five years,” said Holger Schmieding, European chief economist at Bank of America. The Swiss will ultimately not be able to just shop away the recession, which the government expects to be the worst since 1991 as demand from elsewhere in the world slows, weighing on exports, the country’s main driver of growth.īut the $490 billion economy, which some feared might face an Iceland-style meltdown after the subprime-related write-downs of its largest bank UBS of some $50 billion, appears to be in pole position to make it through the crisis as a winner. “I, personally, have not felt any impact from the crisis, but I am watching it and will watch it in the future,” the communications worker said whilst browsing in a posh Max Mara shop in Zurich. “I am still shopping and will continue to do so,” said Edith Weibel Sovilla. While recession has already turned into the nightmare before Christmas elsewhere, the Swiss are still enjoying the benefits of a five-year long boom which has added thousands of jobs and boosted wages in the already prosperous country. Retailers are rejoicing about record sales and a table in restaurants is as hard to get as a hotel room in ski resorts. Inside the tram, children listen to tales of Santa Claus, outside their parents rush from shop to shop, loaded with bags, ignoring the tales of global economic doom and gloom. A woman looks at the window of a luxury watch shop at Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich in this Decemfile photo.
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