The Swiss Earnings Structure Survey (ESS) is a survey carried out every two years among private and public enterprises and administrations in Switzerland. It allows a regular description to be made of the earnings structure in all economic activities of the secondary and tertiary sectors based on representative data. It not only enquires after the economic activity and the size of the enterprise concerned, but also the individual characteristics of employees and their jobs.
In addition to the gross salary, wages also include components such as earnings from overtime, hardship allowances, 13th month's salary or special payments/bonuses. You can find out here how high annual special payments and bonuses are and what proportion the wage components account for in the wage bill.
