This year, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) celebrates the 150th anniversary of its founding! On 1 June 1860 the predecessor of the FSO, the Statistical Office of the Federal Department of Home Affairs, began its activities.
Over the past 150 years, the FSO has experienced rapid change. The survey and data collection methods changed with the introduction of information and communication technologies and numerous changes in politics and business increased the need for data as a basis for decision-making.
In the beginning, the FSO was a small office with a handful of employees. Over the years, the FSO has adjusted again and again to new conditions and has had to be enlarged to do justice to its mandate as a national competence centre for official statistics.