Seems more sustainable than constantly importing foreign wage slaves to do it.

Speaking all 3 national languages and voting against any progressive measure? I think you've overintegrated

Except given that polling happily points in the opposite direction, perhaps not. Still far too much of the redneck in there.

The principle is simple. If you want to work in Switzerland, bloody well live here and pay taxes like the residents.

Be careful what you wish for...do you want tens if not hundreds of thousands of additional people to look for apartments, send their kids in Swiss schools, go to Swiss hospitals?
They might congest the transportation, but frontaliers also relieve some of the pressure on public services and housing.
Plus there are also Swiss people living over the borders.

The Covid shutdown showed how absurd it is to have an international border running through what is for all effects and purposes a single city. For example in Basel. Well in Basel you can make that two international borders.

Maybe they should make some agreements with the adjacent countries that for certain purposes, including sanitary shutdowns, that these places can be considered part of Switzerland and the effectively enforced border be drawn further afield. Maybe for things like education too. Seeing most people who live there are likely to seek employment in Switzerland anyway, why not provide them Basel accredited schools and diplomas?

I think it's hard to argue that EU immigration is in any way in the best interest of the average Herr Müller as basic market economic principles dictate that an influx of people will inflate the housing market esp. in the larger cities as long as construction cannot keep up. EU free movement is however very much in the interest of large Swiss multinationals since they have a larger pool to recruit from and in addition won't have to run as many international offices (in locations with -a lot- higher tax rates).

The point about wage dumping is likely also true because just as in the housing market example the increase of head count inflates the supply of workers while demand remains constant.

In addition, it is not only fully possible for immigrants to "take our jobs" and "live off welfare" - I wager it is true in more or less every country with a welfare system. Some immigrants work from day 0 and some don't work even after 20 years.

Of course it can be argued that there are some positive secondary effects that benefit everyone but I've never been a big fan of Reaganomics so I'll just go ahead and disregard that all together

I may be an immigrant myself but I'm also honest enough not to pretend my presence here isn't detrimental in some ways to certain groups.

Yes, maybe you can keep the cake and eat it too...how is this attitude working for Brexit? The easiest trading deal in history, give me a break...

Correct, the last one should have been a yes

Exactly the opposite.

The further removed the immigrants are culturally the more likely you are to have ghettos and other groupings that enable immigrants to stay within their culture and religion. Conversely, you will never have a discussion with people from a christian society about introducing sharia law, for example. Xenophobia will also be much more intense (and lasting much less long) the less removed they are, and integration all the faster. Same for physiognomical differences, etc pp.

A German from south of the Taunus will understand even the local German dialect in no time, the others will take a bit but written German will be no problem in any case. Compare that to African muslims who may have never gone to school in the first place, and even if they did tehy may not even know the alphabet let alone the language.

Obviously, the lack of local language makes them much less valuable for the job market. And then there's work ethics ...

Some of us were hired precisely due to the lack of knowledge of local language, because we can bring business here by speaking auslander strange languages

Also, profits beat work ethics any day. I'll renew my permit soon and they ask about income, not how much I like to work towards it.

The guys from the rubbish team here are mostly Swiss. A friend of mine worked in this during his studies, it's well paid. The Same for the bus-drivers (we have no trams), most staff in the shops I visit regularly are Swiss.
Where the heck do you live?! At 75% Swiss people in this country, how come you don't see them?

Hmmm, that's more no's than I'll put in.

I will never understand this mentality for some jobs. Some jobs are 1 or 2 years.
So lets analyze the same message for Portugal.

We have engineers from Siemens, Adidas, Novartis, Roche, etc working for 1 or 2 years.

So if they do not speak Portuguese they should never be invited to meetings.

And if they can not joke about Football, drink wine at lunch no way they are equal to us. Right...


PS; I know i am sarcastic but guess what? new CEO of UBS is not swiss. Does he speak Swiss german? Will he not be invited to meetings?

PS2: Best decisions i have seen made is exactly by foreigners. They have seen more than local country boys.

Entering the Swiss job market is not easy from abroad. And not just for visa/work permits things, but because Swiss companies prefer to hire people who have already worked/studied in CH, etc... Then once you are in things get a bit easier.

The only job that are "easy" to get as a foreigner are the low-skilled, lower paid jobs no-one wants to do.

Frontaliers do pay taxes in Switzerland, just like the residents.

Most do, but a lot of it gets kicked back to their countries.

In in some cantons, they don't pay to the Swiss, or if they live more than a certain distance from the border.

Tom

Sure, those jobs exist. But they're few and far between, the proverbial exception that confirms the rule.
Still, if you're not productive enough you'll be fired and replaced by another imported employee. And good luck finding a new job if you haven't learned the local language by then.

Most usage of infrastructure and services happens abroad though. And unemployment is paid out by the country of residence (though France wants to change that). So, splitting the proceeds makes sense.

Yes, and whereas knowing a foreign language and ways is a big plus, being bilingual is always an even bigger plus.

Interesting question:

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/majorit...ign--/44624210

A total of 52% of CEOs from the 50 firms on the SMI Expanded stock exchange are from abroad, according to a study published on Monday by the recruitment consultancy Heidrick & Struggles. A year ago, when the profiles of Swiss executives were evaluated for the first time, the figure was 49%.