(Not so) Ace place

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7054932.stm
Swiss voting for new parliament

When/how did they let 20% of the population become immigrant? I thought
it was a tough place to get working residency.

 

Not anymore if you're an EU citizen.

That's pretty much what my mum says - for example a lot of the menial
jobs in hotels and restaurants are done by people from the poorer EU
countries.

Mum pointed out that for example several of the bus drivers are from
(Eastern) Germany (because they couldn't get jobs in Germany and the
Swiss need bus drivers, as are train drivers etc.

There's that as well, and some of them don't like it.

 

He's joining Tony Blair on a lecture tour of the US before GWB is replaced
by a democrat.

 

It's not the result I'd have liked, but there we go. The "black sheep"
campaign seems shocking to many people who've been inculcated with the
political correctness inherent in the UK, but they seem less concerned
by such things here and have more of a tendency to call a spade a
spade.

There are several factors at work here - Switzerland has long been a
popular destination for Turkish Emigrées, and they make up something
like 3-4% of the population. It's generally this readily identifiable
group who are blamed for the ills of society, and would be singled out
by most of the right-wing voters, I imagine.

Since about 2004 it's been a lot easier for EU citizens to get into
Switerland, even if they haven't gone through the work/residency
permit route. But to get work or benefits they'd need to be official
and the allocation of pwrmits is still strictly limited. There's very
little in the way of 'black' labour, AFAIIA.

But the main bulk of the 20% non-Swiss are not strictly 'immigrants',
but simply the million or so foreign workers and their families in the
various large multinationals who are based here and, particularly in
the Geneva area, the huge number of international organisations like
the WHO, the Red Cross and various UN organisations who are based
here.

So it's basically expats who make up most of the figure you're
quoting, and in practice the population is much more predominantly
white western European than in many of the EU countries around it.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

I used to think this, but in fact it appears not to be true. The canton has
a population of around 400,000 (around 190,000 in the city), of whom about
38% are non-Swiss; but the international organisations employ only 23,000
(this last figure is for 2003, from the Etat de Genève web site). I CBA at
the moment to try to find out who the rest are, but from my own observation
there are a lot of Portugese and Italians in Geneva who aren't working in
international organisations.

 

Note that I said _and_ the international organisations. Large
industry, like pharma and banking, is a direct employer of many
foreigners as well, but in both cases you have to multiply the number
of employees by two or three (or more?) to include their families.
Then there's a huge number of 'indirect' employees, including
consultans and service industries, many of whom also have to be
sourced ex-CH because of special skills/qualifications that they can't
find here.

In Geneva you've also got a large number of consulates and embassies,
who tend to have lots of staff with large families in tow.

In any case I can easily imagine that these combined (direct+
indirect+families) could be approaching the million mark, based on the
number of us there are here.

Sure, and here in Basel too there's a large Italian-speaking
population, although of course many (most?) of them are actually
Swiss-Italian. Similarly, it's quite easy to fail to spot all the
Germans and French, as well as other nationalities speaking those
languages.
--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

You're right, of course, the families must make a big difference. I'm
unclear whether the Etat de Genève website includes diplomatic
representation under international organisations - I think it might - and
we probably don't have as much heavy industry as Basel, but the real figure
must be several times the 23,000 I quoted.

 

Sorry, Paul, can't comment, I'm too far out of the loop[1]. I could
comment on the Swiss election, but it's probably all been covered.
Suffice to say that, of all the electioneering material I had pushed
through my letterbox in the 13 years I was there, most would have been
prosecutable under race-hatred laws in Oz and Canada. Witness the white-
vs. black-sheep poster...

[1] ...and Brunel's news swerver was out of action from some time Friday
night until this morning.

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

I am?!

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Ahem! (Reminds me of getting pulled up at a conference in Eugene, OR,
for remarking that "there is a nigger in the woodpile"...)


--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".