Salaries are rising in these professions - despite the tariff hammer

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• Swiss companies want to raise wages by 1.3% in nominal terms in 2026 despite the customs dispute, which corresponds to 0.8% in real terms.
• The construction, pharmaceutical, finance and hospitality industries will benefit the most.
• But there are also sectors that will hardly benefit at all.

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Despite the customs dispute, Swiss companies want to increase wages next year, as the "NZZ am Sonntag" writes. This is shown by a new wage survey of 4,500 companies conducted by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich, the newspaper writes.

According to the survey, companies want to increase nominal wages by an average of 1.3 in the next twelve months. Taking inflation into account - recently put at 0.5 percent by the KOF - the real increase is likely to be 0.8 percent.

This would be the third year in a row with an increase in real wages. After a long dry spell between 2021 and 2023, employees have thus made up for some of the losses at that time.

Construction industry performs best

The construction industry is performing best with an expected increase of 1.7 percent. The reason for this is the shortage of skilled workers and a strong trade union. Employees in the hospitality, pharmaceutical and financial sectors can also look forward to an above-average pay rise.

The potential remains limited in retail, wholesale and industry, where growth is barely more than one percent. Export-oriented sectors such as the watchmaking and machinery industries, which are suffering from the punitive US tariffs, are being hit particularly hard. According to the KOF Swiss Economic Institute, jobs in these sectors could even be at risk.

The KOF points out that wage increases are not being felt equally by all employees. Instead of general adjustments, many companies are increasingly relying on individual bonus payments.