Job Stability and Job Security: A Comparative Perspective on Switzerland’s Experience in the 1990s

▪ In most European countries, there is some evidence that jobs became, and to an even greater extent were perceived to have become, increasingly insecure in the 1990s. In Switzerland, where unemployment has long been far lower than the European average, unemployment increased in the same period. Yet in general, job stability has remained remarkably constant in the past decade, and instability far below the European average. Only with regard to voluntary job-to-job mobility can a significant increase in the second half of the 1990s be observed; involuntary turnover has actually decreased. As Switzerland is a small, open economy with weak union power and employment protection legislation, this article casts doubts on the extent to which exposure to globalization can influence job instability. Instead, consensusand stability-oriented industrial relations and management practices, as well as the state of the external labour market, appear to shape both job stability and security.