Cross-border workers in Switzerland rise to 414,500

Switzerland counted 414,500 cross-border workers in the third quarter, an increase of 1.8% from the same period last year. The Federal Statistical Office figures, published on Tuesday, show the workforce has expanded by 58,000 people in five years, a rise of 17%. These workers hold G permits and live outside Switzerland while working in the country. The latest national increase sits alongside sharply different regional movements: the Lake Geneva region continued to grow, while Ticino registered a small annual decline. The figures also point to a shift in the makeup of this workforce by sector. Services now account for most cross-border employees, with growth there outpacing manufacturing. Together, the regional and sector totals show where the increase has been strongest and how the workforce is distributed across the Swiss economy.

The Lake Geneva region added to the national rise, reaching 169,200 cross-border workers. Its total grew 3% year on year in the third quarter, the strongest regional figure highlighted in the latest data. That growth contrasts with Ticino, where the count stood at 79,400, down 0.3% compared with the same period of 2025. The difference gives the national increase a distinct regional shape: growth in the Lake Geneva area continued while the southern canton edged lower. Across Switzerland, France was the country of residence for 58% of cross-border workers. Italy accounted for 22%, and Germany for 16%. The distribution reflects the workforce’s strong links with Switzerland’s neighbouring countries, while the regional figures show that the direction and pace of change vary across the country.

Services employed 289,300 cross-border workers, more than twice the 122,100 in manufacturing. The services total rose 2.3% year on year, while manufacturing grew by 0.6%. The difference makes services the larger and faster-growing of the two sectors in the latest quarterly figures. Those two sectors account for most of the reported cross-border workforce, although the national total also includes workers in other industries. The figures show that the increase is not evenly spread across the economy: services contributed the stronger annual growth, while manufacturing recorded a smaller gain. With the national workforce now 17% larger than five years ago, the sector breakdown offers another measure of how its composition is changing. The latest data put the emphasis on services, both in the size of its workforce and in its year-on-year expansion.

The five-year increase of 58,000 workers puts the latest quarterly rise in a longer-term context. Switzerland’s cross-border workforce has grown 17% over that period, reaching 414,500 in the third quarter. The latest annual gain was 1.8%, with the Lake Geneva region up 3% and services employment up 2.3%. Ticino’s 0.3% fall and manufacturing’s 0.6% increase underline how differently regions and sectors moved over the same year. The figures offer a clear snapshot of a workforce increasingly concentrated in services and still closely connected to France, Italy and Germany through workers’ places of residence. For Swiss employers and communities, the quarterly count records the scale of cross-border employment; the five-year comparison shows that the workforce has continued to expand well beyond a single year’s change.