The unemployment indicators presented here are based on the definition of the International Labour Office (ILO). ILO unemployed refers to a person who does not have a job, has looked for a job during the previous four weeks and is available to work. These indicators offer the advantage of allowing international comparisons to be made and are not directly influenced by revisions to the law on unemployment insurance. Unemployment indicators are also published by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). They only concern unemployed persons registered at regional job offices and offer the advantage of being readily available and allowing detailed results to be obtained, notably by canton.
However, the unemployment indicators do not provide a full picture of the non-exploited potential workforce. In order to describe the labour market situation more exhaustively, the FSO has developed supplementary indicators to unemployment that are comparable at international level, namely:
- underemployed persons, i.e. employed persons who work part-time who would like to work more and are available for a job with a higher work-time percentage.
- persons looking for a job who are unavailable for work (PRE-ND): economically inactive persons who are actively looking for a job but are not available in the short-term.
- persons who are available for work but are not looking for a job (PD-SRE): economically inactive persons who would like to be professionally active and are available for work but are not actively looking for a job.
- NEETs aged 15 to 29: persons not in education, employment or training.
Lastly, as regards the business statistics, you will find indicators for the employment forecast, vacancies and recruitment difficulties.
