MOD - The au pair thread has got hijacked by au pairs and families looking for au pairs.
I wanted to put some words together regarding our experiences of finding an au-pair and legally employing her. These are pointers and your own family and Kanton
Situation should be looked at in detail before embarking on this journey.
Firstly finding an au pair – we wanted to limit our search to an EU au pair for ease of doing the paperwork ourself, getting the work permit etc.
Unlike the UK and other countries an au pair has to be employed as they were working in a proper job, ie they have to pay the social costs and tax like a normal worker. Furthermore they have to have the statutory accident, health and third party liability insurance.
Also a consideration is the nationality of the au pair. An au pair is a person who perhaps lives with a family and experiences living in a different culture than their own. Therefore if you are living in the German part of Switzerland, you cannot employ a German native speaker and if you speak mainly English at home, you cannot employ a native English speaker. So being a British family in the German part of Switzerland, we are already limited on where we can source our au pair from.
Unlike the UK where an au pair is just paid pocket money, the au pair has to be legally employed. This is an important consideration, since if the au pair has an accident, you may find that their insurance is not valid. Also child care is tax deductable at CHF4000 per year per child and the au pairs costs can be offset against your annual tax return.
Finding an au pair can be very difficult, agencies in Switzerland demand a lot of money and take the effort out of the family sorting out the paperwork etc.
There are websites, but we found a scam where there was a good au pair profile, but the person behind the profile was completely different. In the end we found an au pair from Hungary through my work contacts and at the moment it is working well.
Salary – We were advised that we would pay our 18 year old au pair CHF600 gross for 30 hours per week. We have decided as a family that we will pay her AVH (Social ) and tax contributions, in addition to this. Please note that if an au pair is living with you their food and lodging is seen as a additional benefit and therefore tax deductable. In our Kanton board and lodging is set at CHF920 per month. Therefore the au pair will be taxed at (CHF 600 + CHF920), their effective salary is CHF1520 / month.
Remember that as an employer, you have to pay additionally the employer AVH contributions.
It is also a legal requirement that the family provide the statutory medical, accident and third party liability insurance for the au pair. We could not find a real adequate Swiss insurance that covered, medical, accident,third party liability, travel, lost keys, pregnancy etc. In the end we turned to a special German insurance company who provided specialised au pair insurance.
Now the Gemeinde wasn`t too happy that we didn`t have Swiss Insurance. We had a letter from the German Insurance company saying that their insurance was valid in all Shengen countries of which Swizerland is a member.
http://www.klemmer-aupair.com/en/introduction.html
This is the key. If you are coming here to Switzerland as a temporary worker then you do not need to have Swiss Medical, Accident and Third party liability for three years. I received a letter from the Gemeinde yesterday that wanted the stamp and signature from the insurance company in Germany saying that they meet the policy meets the minimum Swiss insurance requirement. The belt and braces policy for our au pair was EU45 per month, payable in instalments on a credit card. -
We then put together a contract for the au pair, outlining, hours of work, duties, salary, medical cover, disciplinary procedure etc. I am PM a blank copy if anyone is interested. It is in English and we are waiting to see whether the main parts needs to be translated into German for the authorities. Since writing the contract we have learnt that that an 18 year old is entitled to five weeks annual paid leave, instead of the four weeks, which we wrote in the contract.
So the au pair arrived and we registered her with the Gemeinde. We also registered her with the AHV Kasse (Social). I then went to the Post Office and opened a bank account for her, which you can do without a Bewilligung.
Is is also mandatory that she attends a language class, so we are looking into her options at the moment.
So – Two weeks in with our new au pair, so this is our experiences. I have probably forgot some stuff. If in doubt seek the advice of a local accountant, who can act on your behalf smoothing the way with the authorities.
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