Unemployment rate steady at 3% in October

Context

TL;DR

• URC registrations at 141’015: up 0,4% in October
• Unemployment rate steady at 3%
• Young people: 679 fewer unemployed people, rate at 3,2%
• Vacancies at 40’462, down 8,5%

Key facts

The October figure

According to data released on Thursday by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), in October the number of people registered with the Regional Employment Centres (RCOs) increased by 535 compared with September. The increase is 0,4%, bringing the total to 141’015. The month-on-month comparison therefore shows a limited change, not a jump in the number of people reported as unemployed.

The unemployment rate remained at 3% compared with September. Alongside the ordinary rate, the statement also gives the percentage calculated excluding seasonal effects: in October, both remained unchanged from September, but the second figure was 3,1%.

The breakdown by age, however, shows a different movement. The number of unemployed young people fell by 679, or 4,7%, and their rate declined by 0,1 percentage points, to 3,2%. Among older people, by contrast, the number registered with the RCOs increased by 239, or 0,6%, to 38’721. The corresponding rate rose from 2,6% in September to 2,7%.

The overall figure therefore does not represent a uniform movement among the groups observed: the younger component declined, the older component increased, while the general rate remained unchanged. SECO’s communication describes these changes but does not attribute a cause to them. The comparison with September should therefore be read separately for the total, the seasonally adjusted figure and the age groups.

Operational details

Three indicators, three readings

The number of people registered with the URC does not automatically coincide with the number of people looking for work or with the number of vacancies: the release presents them as distinct measures. This separation is useful for interpreting October without attributing the entire trend in the labor market to the 3% rate alone.

The figures are not interchangeable

The picture that emerges from the table is misaligned: URC registrations increase slightly, the number of people looking for work rises by 1,1%, while vacancies decrease by 8,5%. The rate associated with people looking for work rises from 4,8% to 4,9%, so it does not follow the stability of the unemployment rate. The source does not present these changes as causing one another and does not make it possible to infer an automatic effect on the number of hires.

A purely arithmetic comparison helps measure the distance between the figures: for October, 230’001 ÷ 40’462 is approximately 5,7. It is only a descriptive ratio, not a placement rate. The text does not state that every person looking for work is a candidate for every position, nor that the two series have the same composition.

Of the 40’462 vacancies, 25’803 fall under the reporting requirement, introduced in 2018 for sectors with high unemployment. The figure adds detail about the composition of job openings, but does not indicate which occupations or which geographic areas are involved.

Key points

Other signals, but for different periods

The data on short-time work and the exhaustion of entitlement to unemployment benefits supplement the release, but do not pertain to the same month as the main figure. Short-time work refers to July, while the exhaustion of entitlement refers to August; the unemployment rate and those registered with the URCs, on the other hand, concern October.

July and August

In July, short-time work affected 7’068 people: 1’295 fewer than in the previous month. The number of sectors affected by reduced working hours fell by more than a quarter, to 473. These are two different measures: one counts the people involved, while the other counts the sectors in which the reduction was recorded.

In August, 2’718 people exhausted their entitlement to unemployment benefits, 9,5% fewer than in July. The comparison is therefore between August and July, while the comparison of those registered with the URCs is between October and September. Mixing these time bases would produce a single reading that the source does not present.

The reported content does not indicate the causes of the changes, does not make forecasts for the following months, and does not offer a breakdown by regions, professions, or individual sectors. It therefore does not document a causal link between the reduction in working hours in July, the exhaustion of benefits in August, and the unemployment rate in October. SECO provides a series of indicators to be read separately, with their respective reference period.

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Source: rsi.ch