What kind of jobs Swiss municipalities offer

Services carry most of the jobs

Share of jobs in services has a median of 63.6% across municipalities, so in the typical case services provide most of the local work. Le Grand-Saconnex has the highest share at 98.6%, followed by Meyriez at 97.9% and Comano at 97.7%.

Large cities are no exception. Zürich has 94.7% of its jobs in services and Lausanne has 94.9%. Services are not tied to big populations either: Kloten reaches 90.7% with 44,424 jobs for 22,017 residents.

At the other end, Mex (VD) has only 4.2%. Industry accounts for 95.2% of the jobs in Mex (VD), where the average workplace employs 39.2 people, so one or two large firms can set the profile of the whole municipality.

Services and industry are largely complements: where one is high, the other is low. Kaiseraugst has 25.9% of its jobs in services against 74.0% in industry, while Le Grand-Saconnex, with 12,358 jobs, has only 1.4% in industry.

Where factories still dominate

Share of jobs in industry and construction has a median of 24.2%. Among the larger job centres, the picture is clear: Kaiseraugst has 74.0% of its 6,826 jobs in industry and construction, Bubendorf has 67.7%, Le Locle has 65.0% and Le Chenit has 64.3%. Profiles differ sharply even within one canton: in Aargau, Kaiseraugst has 74.0% of its jobs in industry, while Wettingen, with 8,105 jobs, has only 19.1%. Visp and Plan-les-Ouates split their work almost evenly, with 51.0% and 45.5% in industry.

The very highest shares belong to small municipalities where a single workplace can weigh heavily: Mex (VD) has 95.2% and Villeret has 84.4%. These figures describe a handful of employers rather than a regional economy, and they can change quickly when a company moves.

The divide shows in who works there. The share of women among those employed is 15.4% in Mex (VD) and 76.0% in Meyriez. Across municipalities, a high share of industrial jobs tends to go with a lower share of women among employees.

Farming jobs in the hills

The share of local jobs in farming has a median of 7.7%, but the top of the table is far above it: Ochlenberg has 81.2% and Walterswil (BE) has 68.3%, and both lie in the canton of Bern. Those are small municipalities where farms are most of the local workplaces. Farm size varies too: the average farm of Bure works 101.3 ha, against a median of 22.5 ha across municipalities, and the number of farms has changed by −13.3% over ten years in the median municipality.

Farming also matters in larger municipalities. Stammheim has 34.4% of its 1,506 jobs in farming, Fully has 31.0% of 2,584 and Escholzmatt-Marbach has 27.7% of 2,299. Escholzmatt-Marbach counts 246 farms, the highest number of any municipality.

In urban areas farming barely registers: Geneva has 0.0% of its jobs in farming and Le Grand-Saconnex has 0.0%. Where farming dominates, work also tends to be part-time: in Ochlenberg full-time equivalents amount to 58.8% of those employed, against a median of 74.3%.

Big workplaces and small workshops

The average workplace in the median municipality employs 5.0 people, but the range is wide. Mex (VD) has 39.2, Dierikon has 32.9 and Rennaz has 31.1. At the other end, Vernate has 1.4, close to a one-person business.

Large workplaces produce job-rich municipalities. Jobs per 1,000 inhabitants reaches 2,018 in Kloten, where the average workplace employs 26.9 people, and 4,078 in Manno, which amounts to several jobs per resident. Dierikon and Rennaz follow the same pattern, with 32.9 and 31.1 people per workplace.

Small places show the opposite: Vernate has only 70 jobs for 618 residents. Jobs are counted where the workplace is, not where employees live. A municipality can therefore offer far more jobs than it has residents, as Zürich does with 545,295 jobs, and the surplus is filled by commuters from elsewhere.

Ten years of job change

The number of jobs has changed by 9.3% in the median municipality over ten years. Among the larger job centres, Risch has a change of 58.9%, Visp has 54.7% and Plan-les-Ouates has 50.1%. They lie in the cantons of Zug, Valais and Geneva, so strong growth is not tied to one region.

Others have lost ground. Flawil has a change of −10.5%, Rorschach has −9.2% and Binningen has −8.9%. These are still sizeable workplaces, so the figures reflect many firms and not just one.

Small bases exaggerate. Rennaz has a change of 490.8%, on a much smaller base ten years ago. When a single company arrives or leaves, a small municipality's figure can swing by multiples, which is why the changes of job centres say more than the changes of tiny places.

Sector shares are shares of jobs, not of output or income, and jobs are counted at the workplace. A firm with several sites appears in each municipality where it employs people, so a municipality's profile can reflect a few sites rather than the whole local economy.