Swissmem President "We need immigration into the labor market"

The industry umbrella organization Swissmem is against the two initiatives from SVP circles on Swiss neutrality and limiting the population to ten million people. "We need immigration into the labor market," said President Martin Hirzel.

Society is over-aged and many people want to work less. "Our economy is doing so well and we are such an attractive location that we need people and good people are coming," said Hirzel in an interview with Tamedia published on Tuesday. "In ten or twenty years, there will be competition for immigration in Europe because all our neighboring countries have the same challenge." Switzerland should organize itself in such a way that immigration can be managed and the population can support this.

The interpretation of Swiss neutrality according to the neutrality initiative goes too far, Hirzel continued. "Such a dogmatic interpretation of neutrality harms our armaments and security industry. If the customers of the Swiss arms industry cannot even sell their products on to countries with the same export standards as Switzerland, this will effectively be their downfall."

Hirzel: We have to think of ourselves first

Switzerland should position itself in such a way that it can "talk to everyone and do business with everyone". "That's not immoral," says Hirzel. "As a small country that is not part of any alliance, we have to think of ourselves first. Without exports, there is no Swiss industry and therefore no more prosperity."

The Swissmem President is confident about the relationship between Switzerland and the EU. He expects a result on the Bilaterals III before the end of the year. However, he criticized the trade unions: "The trade unions want to make it easier to declare collective employment agreements generally binding and introduce national minimum wages. This has nothing to do with the Bilaterals III."