I would like anyones advice in regards to this big move. Myself along with my husband and four children under seven years old would like to escape the USA. I have read that switzerland has so much to offer with respect to my families health and culture. We are not retired and would need employment for my husband until the children get older. He has been in construction building homes and commercial buildings for many years. our biggest goal is to live in a friendly ,safe area and enjoy what life has to offer. From the hustle to the materialistic luxuries of others is of no importance, and friendly neighbors and happy children is our priority. if you can please offer your honest opinions i would greatly appreciate everything . We are in our forties and have researched Costa rica as well ,but Europe is our first choice is possible.

Have you looked at Germany? Or the UK, but the economy is weak there.

Friendly neighbours? If your looking for nosey neigjbours CH could be your kind of place.

Life in CH is tremendously expensive. There's no way a construction worker can get enough to make a family of 6 live. Basically the salary would pay the rent of the flat, and the medical insurances. Nothing else I'm afraid. It would be a very precarious life.

I suggest you search the forum to get an idea about what the prices are here, and what to expect for a monthly budget.

Nonsense, a neighbor is a construction worker, and supports a family of six on his income alone (wife doesn't work).

He even owns a house!

Tom

The biggest two barriers are language, and getting a permit for your husband unless one of you have some EU country citizenship? If not, to hire him, here the company would first have to prove that they could not hire anyone to do the job from the EU, and I imagine that would be be quite a stretch for the construction industry. I suppose that in the construction industry being fluent in a Swiss language would be quite necessary, even in management positions.

Another factor to consider is the education of your older kids. They are quite young and will pick up the language really fast, but initially there will be an adjustment period. The public schools teach in the regional languages. Some of them do have extra classes to help foreign kids with the language.

Fully agree with the quote. If you are both non-EU and if you both do not know at least one official Swiss language, your chances of securing even a permit will be extremely hard.

Move to Lyndon, Washington State and find work in Langley, British Columbia... or just move to Canada altogether.

Hello OP and welcome to our community. You can read up pages and pages on your dilemma, it has been around for ages, so don't feel strange asking this question. I am listing some of the related threads. Now, personally, do not want to rain on your parade, but having Switzerland or Costa Rica as choices...both of them are extremely different, as to survival rate, expenses, etc.

Switzerland vs the US

Pros-cons-living-USA-cf-Switzerland

Otherwise, the entire search is here.

Good luck.

Escape the US? Im afraid youd be trading one prison cell for a slightly smaller more restrictive one..

If you dont know the language you and your kids will have a really tough time.. Not to mention work, construction is generally not the same here as in the US.. I agree with the other poster, look into BC canada, the mountains look the same, they have socialized healthcare, and as far as culture. Well, take a family vacation here, that should do it... Day to day i dont see any value of "culture" here except for the variety of languages, which, if you dont speak one, nothing is culturally imparted on you..
As far as a permit, this would be next to impossible.. I was offered a job in liechtenstein, and even though i have a swiss work visa, thru marriage,
they couldnt give me the job because they would have to give it to a EU member first.....

Sounds like a housewives fantasy... And i mean no offense.. I dream all day long of the same things.. Just be careful what you subject your kids to, because the grass isnt always greener........

Ok, as nobody else posted the most obvious point yet: The biggest hurdle will be neither income level or language - if you really want to, there is a way.
The biggest hurdle is education. I assume that your husband who works in construction is not a construction engineer, but a builder. Any craft is more "controlled" in Switzerland (and German or Austria for that matter). This means that teenagers after leaving school get a formal traineeship of two or three years and "graduate" in their craft. Whitout this traineeship will your husband have a hard time to find a job:
Jobs in Switzerland are not open to anyone globally. Any employer that wants to employ your non European husband has to prove to the authorities that he tried to find a suitable candidate locally. After he didn't find a Swiss, he is allowed to get an EU national. Only if there are no Europeans available for the job are non Europeans considered.
The only cases I know where a non EU person found a job in Switzerland are college graduates or specific health care jobs. There are millions of unemployed Spanish construction workers, so I am afraid you can simply forget your plan of coming here if you have not more to offer... (just as the US is not exactly open to low educated imigrants).

You want to live in a "friendly, safe" area? I found plenty of places in the USA that would fit that criteria. The USA is so vast that I think that it has the perfect place for everyone, somewhere. :-), especially away from big cities.