For the majority of us, working life constitutes an essential part of our lives. Work has a considerable influence on the quality of life through the income it generates, the social contacts it allows us to make, the tensions and satisfaction we derive from it or indeed the dangers to which it may expose us.
By using a selection of indicators, the publication and standard table on the quality of employment enable an assessment of the situation in Switzerland and how it has evolved over the past ten years. The Federal Statistical Office follows the handbook developed by the group of experts on measuring quality of employment, which was published in 2015 by the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe). To take into account the multi-dimensional character of the quality of employment, it is based on seven dimensions of analysis: safety at work, income and benefits from employment, working time and work-life balance, security of employment and social protection, social dialogue, qualifications and continuing education and training, employment-related relationships and work motivation. This topic, which is also of international importance, is covered by numerous existing official statistics sources. At European level, a selection of indicators is available from the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat).
In 2019, the European module ‘Work organisation and working time arrangements’ was carried out as part of the Swiss Labour Force Survey (SLFS). This module collected data for certain indicators from the statistical framework of the handbook on measuring quality of employment (such as variable working hours, main place of work, commuting time, job autonomy). The publication ‘Arbeitsorganisation und Arbeitszeitgestaltung in der Schweiz und im europäischen Vergleich 2019’ (Work organisation and working time arrangements in Switzerland and in European comparison, 2019) and the corresponding standard tables complete the analyses of the quality of employment (available in French and German).
