Access to talent

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 also 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 now become Google's largest and most important location for development outside the USA, with more than 2,500 employees from 75 nations working for Google in Zurich.

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, one of the world's leading technical 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.

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.