Different indicators on people in employment are available under the heading "Employed persons" Before consulting them, we advise you to take note of some important concepts:
Who is defined as an employed person?
What differences are there between employed persons based on the domestic concept and on the permanent resident population concept?
What is meant by the concepts of "employed persons" or "jobs"?
What differences are there between "economically active persons" and "employed persons"?
Employed persons are people aged 15 and over who during the reference week
- worked for payment for at least one hour,
- or who, although temporarily absent from work (absence due to illness, holiday, maternity leave, military service etc.) had a job either as an employee or as a self-employed person,
- or who worked in the family business without being paid.
This definition includes, regardless of the place where the activity takes place (in a business, at home or in a private household): employees, self-employed people, family members in family businesses, apprentices, recruits, non-commissioned officers and officers who during basic military training or service for promotion, keep their job and employment contract, school children and students who carry out a job while studying and retired persons who continue working. Persons whose work is comprised exclusively of housework in their own household, unpaid assistance to other people or other voluntary activities are not considered as employed persons.
Statistical sources
Employment statistics, labour market accounts: employed persons based on the domestic concept.
Swiss Labour Force Survey, structural survey conducted as part of population census: employed persons in the permanent resident population.
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.
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".
Economically active persons include employed persons and unemployed persons as defined by the ILO. Economically active persons constitute the labour supply.
