If you are looking for a job in Switzerland, you may not be aware of the requirement that companies have to report certain vacancies to the regional employment offices. It’s a law that could impact some foreign nationals.
This particular legislation, which was initially enforced in 2018 but tightened further in 2020, is quite ‘obscure’, in a sense that many job-seekers from outside Switzerland and the European Union and EFTA (Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) may not be aware of it — even though it impacts them the most.
What is this about?
In February 2014, voters in Switzerland approved the initiative launched by the Swiss People’s Party to curtail ‘mass immigration.’
The parliament subsequently decided to introduce a job registration requirement for those occupations with the biggest vacancy rates.
The goal was to prioritise domestic workforce over foreign workers — concretely, those from outside the EU/EFTA.
The law, which went into effect in July 2018, stipulated that employers who wanted to hire foreign nationals for occupations with a job vacancy rate of at least 8 percent had to first report these jobs to the local employment offices, so unemployed people in a given region could get a five-day ‘head start’ to apply for these vacancies.
After that period — and if no suitable candidate was found among the existing workforce — the job could be opened to general recruitment.
The 8-percent threshold was lowered to 5 percent in 2020, since the Covid pandemic caused many people in Switzerland — especially in manufacturing, construction, as well as hotel and restaurant sectors — to lose their jobs.
But other than the lower threshold — which remains intact to this day — the job reporting obligation still remains.
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Which foreign nationals are most affected by this rule?
As under the terms of the agreement between Bern and Brussels, EU nationals have the same rights as the Swiss regarding access to the employment market (and the same rule applies to people from EFTA states as well), the ones most impacted are citizens of third nations.
For them, the job reporting requirement is one more hurdle in the already complex process of obtaining a Swiss work permit.
READ ALSO: What do third-country nationals need to do to move to Switzerland?
That is because before a person from outside the EU/EFTA can be hired, the potential employer must not only comply with requirements such as the candidate’s special skills, usefulness for the country’s economy, and inability to find equally qualified Swiss or EU/EFTA workers, but also factor in the job notification procedure in effect in a particular region and for particular jobs.
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What is the current situation on the labour market?
According to the latest report from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), as of May 23rd, 2025, the number of positions subject to the reporting requirement was “significantly lower “ in 2024.
The reason is a low vacancy rate across all sectors.
Concretely, this means that no profession reported a vacancy rate of more than 5 percent.
Consequently, third-country citizens have, at least currently, one less obstacle to overcome in the still-onerous process of obtaining a Swiss work permit.
However, this situation may change in the future, and not necessarily for the better.
According to the same SECO report, in 2025, additional professions — including sales and marketing executives — will be added to the list of occupations subjected to the reporting requirement.
