Employees Switzerland
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Higher Minimum Wage for Temporary Workers

The social partners have agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement on staff leasing for the next four years. It brings with it a higher minimum wage (+3.2% in 2024) with automatic inflation compensation for the coming years.

The social partners of the Collective Bargaining Agreement on Staff Leasing – the unions Unia and Syna, the Swiss Commercial Association, Employees Switzerland and the Swiss employers’ association for staff leasing, swissstaffing – have signed the collective bargaining agreement for the next four years following intensive negotiations. This will further develop the pioneering agreement that shapes and safeguards temporary work on the basis of social partnerships.

Important Changes to Minimum Wage

From 2024, automatic inflation compensation will be applied to the minimum wage for all categories of worker (unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workers). In addition to this, the increases seen in 2021 and 2022 that have not yet been compensated for will be taken into account. This means the minimum wage will increase by 3.2% from 2024 (see minimum wage table). The minimum wage set down in the CBA on Staff Leasing applies to all temporary workers not working in a sector covered by its own generally applicable CBA or subject to the CBAs listed in Appendix 1. For these temporary workers, the CBA on Staff Leasing uses the minimum wage from the other CBAs.

The social partners agreed that the minimum wage in the CBA on Staff Leasing should comply with the statutory minimum wage where this is higher (see table).

Furthermore, the CBA contribution towards the enforcement, continuing training and sick pay solution will be amended. The total amount will decrease from 1 percent to 0.8 percent and will be divided equally. Specifically, this means the contribution made by employers will increase from 0.3 to 0.4 percent, whilst for employees, this will decrease from 0.7 to 0.4 percent. This is equivalent to a further 0.3 percent increase in their net salary.

The social partners demand that the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) should declare the new CBA on Staff Leasing generally applicable for four years starting from 1 January 2024 or extend the current CBA on Staff Leasing temporarily until the new CBA on Staff Leasing can be declared generally applicable.

 

Contact:

Tanja Riepshoff, Collective Labor Law & Social Partnership, Tel. +41 (0)44 360 11 54

tanja.riepshoff@angestellte.ch

Minimum Wage per Month (x13)

The CBA on Staff Leasing

The CBA on Staff Leasing applies to 400,000 employees per year and is therefore the CBA that has the biggest reach in Switzerland. It contains legal requirements concerning working and salary conditions, modern provisions regarding training and occupational pensions, and an industry solution for sick pay insurance. Temporary workers can access grants of up to 5000 Swiss francs for training or receive compensation for loss of earnings via the Continuing Education Fund temptraining. Since this fund was launched, it has received over 120,000 training applications and invested more than 110 million francs in the professional futures of temporary workers. In the context of European policy, the existing collective bargaining agreement that has been in place since 2012 has contributed significantly to protecting Swiss salary and working conditions. The CBA on Staff Leasing plays a pioneering role in shaping and safeguarding the increasingly flexible world of work on the basis of social partnerships.