Greater Zurich Area Switzerland world leading talent hub

Deep pool of skilled employees: Top talent finds a home in Greater Zurich

Are you looking for a location with a broad and diverse availability of highly-qualified employees? According to both the INSEAD Global Talent Competitiveness Index and the IMD World Talent Ranking, Switzerland, particularly the Greater Zurich Area, continues to be the world's most appealing location for attracting, retaining, and developing talent.

This is thanks to key factors like the excellent Swiss education system, leading universities producing and attracting top talent, the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons with the European Union, the country’s cosmopolitan attitude, attractive conditions for employees and employers, social mobility, and the high quality of life. Switzerland can thus be named both Europe's and the world's leading talent hub.

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Whitepaper DeepTech Recruiting in Switzerland and the Greater Zurich Area

Why Greater Zurich: the leading talent hub

The Greater Zurich Area continues to score highly on the Global Talent Competitiveness Index, thanks to its excellent career opportunities for skilled talent, excellent infrastructure, and high quality of life. Additionally, the wage level for highly qualified talents is at a uniform level throughout Europe - considering the country’s low individual taxation, Switzerland is particularly attractive for top-earning specialists.

From an employer's point of view, Greater Zurich offers ideal conditions for recruiting the best talents. Innovative, global companies such as Google, Microsoft, and IBM, as well as a growing start-up community, help Greater Zurich to thrive as a business location. The city of Zurich has become Google's largest and most important location for development outside the USA, with more than 5,000 employees - "Zooglers" - from 85 nations working for Google in Zurich.

More reasons why Greater Zurich

Outstanding education system

Switzerland has a very successful and well-established dual education system. School graduates have the opportunity to complete a 3-4 years apprenticeship at a company while attending vocational school, and two-thirds of young people choose this career path. Apprentices acquire practical professional skills and take an active role in the company’s processes.

At the university level, every year, around 14,500 Bachelor's degrees, 14,000 Master's degrees, and 4,000 doctorates are awarded. Additionally, there are around 16,000 bachelor's and master's graduates from universities of applied sciences. With the ETH Zurich, among the world's top 10 universities, the University of Zurich, and various universities of applied sciences, the Greater Zurich Area has a particularly high percentage of tertiary educational institutions and graduates.

Linguistic and cultural diversity

In addition to its thriving dual education system, linguistic and cultural diversity is a key feature of Switzerland’s business community. The official languages of Switzerland are German, French, Italian, and Romansh, and local employees are known for their multilingualism, intercultural competence, and adaptability. English as a lingua franca is very common in Switzerland and the second most spoken language in Zurich.

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Rankings, facts and figures

#1 worldwide in talent attraction and retention

Source: IMD World Talent Ranking

#1 in Talent Competitiveness

Source: INSEAD Global Talent Competitiveness Index

#1 worldwide in innovation

Source: WIPO Global Innovation Index

#2 most competitive economy in the world

Source: IMD World Competitiveness Ranking

ETH Zurich ranks #7 among universities worldwide

Source: QS World University Rankings

4 official national languages

Source: EDA

One of the things that stands out about operating in Greater Zurich is the high quality & diverse talent pool available to fill roles across our entire organization R&D, supply chain, commercial, and corporate functions. It’s a great location to build a team to lead our European operations.