PostedAugust 12, 2022, 9:38 PM
SuisseThe gap is growing between high and low salaries, denounces Unia
The leaders of some forty large Swiss groups earned an average of 141 times more than their lowest-paid employees last year, according to a study by the union.
The gap is widening between low and high incomes in Switzerland, notes the Unia union.
Tamedia
Within the Roche group, the lowest paid employee would have to work 307 years to receive the equivalent of the annual salary of CEO Severin Schwan. The Unia union published the results on Friday of a study on wage differentials in Switzerland. Inspecting the salary conditions of the 43 largest Swiss groups (see box), the document concludes that the gap has widened in 2021.
On average, the highest-paid person at these companies earned 141 times more last year than the lowest-paid employee. A year earlier, the multiplication factor was still 136, underlines Unia which calls for a general increase in wages.
The gap between low and high income in 2021 within 10 large Swiss groups.
Source: Unia trade union
The union believes, in summary, that the profits made by these companies and redistributed to shareholders would be sufficient to grant general wage increases to employees. In half of the companies analyzed, emphasizes Unia, the lowest incomes are less than 50,712 francs per year.
“These salaries are therefore significantly lower than the low salary threshold, which corresponds in Switzerland to 53,320 francs”, writes Unia, which demonstrates that in Switzerland, real salaries (taking into account the evolution of purchasing power ) of the lowest 10% increased by only 0.5% between 2016 and 2020, while those of the highest 10% increased by 4%. The salaries of big bosses even jumped 12% according to the study.
According to the union, “if we want to reduce wage inequalities and increase low wages, general increases are in the short term the most effective means”. In this period marked by inflation and a possible notorious rise in health insurance premiums, “these general increases are becoming urgent”, concludes Unia.
The study covers 43 companies, 39 of which are listed on the stock exchange. This corresponds to approximately one sixth of the 232 companies listed in Switzerland. 20 of these 39 companies are part of the group of 20 largest securities of the Swiss Performance Index (SPI), which constitute the Swiss Market Index (SMI). The results are therefore representative of the evolution of wages in the largest Swiss companies, indicates Unia. Since 2012, the highest salary of a member of the group management (usually the CEO) is compared to the lowest salary paid in the same company in Switzerland. Until 2011, the average salary of the members of the group management was used as a comparison value.
(Comm/jba)
