Employment and working hours

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Employment and working hours

According to economic theory, individuals or households supply their services to the labour market (labour supply) and businesses demand such services (labour demand). The labour supply (economically active persons) comprises employed persons and unemployed persons; labour demand is comprised of jobs (filled jobs) and vacant posts.

The indicators presented here are intended to provide an overview of the population's participation in the labour market (economically active population, employed persons and working hours). Jobs and vacant posts are dealt with in topic 6 "Industry and services".

Before looking at our employment indicators, we suggest a brief glance at certain key concepts:

What is meant by the concepts of "employed persons" or "jobs"?

The term "employed person" refers to individuals; the term "job" refers to individual posts. People who hold several jobs appear only once in the statistics on employed persons and as many times as they have jobs in the job statistics. For more information on these differences, please consult our definitions and the document "Comparisons between the job statistics and the employment statistics".

What differences are there between "economically active persons" and "employed persons"?

Economically active persons include employed persons and unemployed persons as defined by the ILO. Economically active persons constitute the labour supply.

What differences are there between employed persons based on the domestic concept and on the permanent resident population concept?

The labour market statistics are based either on the domestic concept or on the permanent resident population concept. The domestic concept considers all persons working in Switzerland regardless of whether they are resident in Switzerland or abroad. The permanent resident population includes all persons residing in Switzerland for at least one year, regardless of where they work.

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