Civilian service 2024 with new record number of service days
Keystone-SDA
Members of the civilian service completed a record 1.9 million days of service in 2024, a 3.5% increase on the previous year.
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Last year 6,799 people were newly admitted to civilian service, an increase of 0.7%, the Federal Office for Civilian Service said on Tuesday.
The number of organisations providing civilian service fell by 2.9% to 4,361, meaning that the civilian service had almost 800 fewer places, namely 15,918. According to the Federal Office for Civilian Service, however, this is sufficient. The neutrality of the labour market has been maintained.
A third of newly admitted civilian service members submitted their application after completing recruit school, 55.7% of applications were submitted before joining the army and 10.6% during recruit school.
+ Swiss government wants to restrict access to civilian service
The number of days of service had already reached a record level in 2023. In 2024, 51.6% of civilian service days were spent in social services, 16.6% in schools, 14.8% in healthcare institutions and 9.7% in environmental protection and nature conservation.
The government wants to reduce admissions to civilian service. In particular, it considers admissions after completing recruit school to be problematic, as specialists and managers are leaving. An amendment to the Civilian Service Act is intended to comply with the constitutional provision that there is no freedom of choice between military and alternative civilian service.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
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