111–120 of 289 posts
> Swiss citizens have rejected by a 55% majority... This is still very close for comfort, and SVP will re-propose it again and again and again as it and it's predecessors have done for decades.
They have among the lowest fertility rates on the planet and a huge over 50 population.
There's no way they can keep being wealthy and comfortable without younger immigrants.
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Can you explain why you think xenophobia is low? My experience as a swed is that xenophobia and trying to avoid immigration often go hand in hand. You do not have a large Swiss right populist semi racist party like most other European countries have?
In my experience, Swiss don't like criminals, unemployed people and people showing openly their religion. They negatively associate certain nationalities with stereotypes (e.g. Albanians, Maroccans etc.). If you are a representative of these groups, yes, it will be a problem. Violence towards foreigners is, compared to other countries, does not exist. Also with other nationalities, it is very different. Some people d…
Source: am Swiss
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To me it seems like EU countries are independently embarking on the Canada-policy of importing a whole bunch of South East Asians and Latin Americans. From Hungary to Ireland, you see the same trend. Part of it is by economic necessity. For example finding nursing staff is very challenging and you have to compete with the US and Australia and other rich countries. But part of it doesn't make much sense. We really don…
> For example finding nursing staff is very challenging No. Finding staff that'll work for very low wages is very challenging. It's not really about bringing in essential skills, it's about driving down wages.
Sort of. You’re simply not going to have an agricultural sector with at Canadian and American wages without significantly higher food prices and protectionism. One day we may automate that. But that will still be more expensive for the foreseeable future.
Voters seem to be picking domestic production and low prices, with low wages being a side effect. (Business interests of course love those.)
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To me it seems like EU countries are independently embarking on the Canada-policy of importing a whole bunch of South East Asians and Latin Americans. From Hungary to Ireland, you see the same trend. Part of it is by economic necessity. For example finding nursing staff is very challenging and you have to compete with the US and Australia and other rich countries. But part of it doesn't make much sense. We really don…
> For example finding nursing staff is very challenging No. Finding staff that'll work for very low wages is very challenging. It's not really about bringing in essential skills, it's about driving down wages.
Recent, related New Yorker article that goes into the background leading up to the vote https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/15/could-switzerl... Despite the prosperity, many Swiss had mixed emotions about the guest workers, who came largely from Southern Europe. As the Swiss novelist Max Frisch observed, “We wanted workers, but we got people.”
Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs. It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the j…
But yes, probably an improved psychology (in terms of understanding yourself, trying to learn, be curious, etc), would fix a lot, still feels like a daunting task anywhere in the world.
Never heard of a hard limit on population. What happens if you go over? It was terrible for girls born in China when they had their one child limit.
Nothing. It was an initiative to limit immigration, by a xenophobic party. They don't give a damn if you have 13 children, they don't want brown people in Switzerland.
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On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
I would say that this post definitly falls squarely into the "interesting new phenomenon" category since it's the first time a country has proposed a population cap (as far as i am aware).
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We do. Swiss naturalization is famously difficult. But EU citizens can basically live forever in CH even though technically they don’t have permanent residency.
There are 40k naturalisations each year (a similar number relative to population as in the US). Around 13% of the Swiss citizens have acquired the nationality via naturalisation (8% in the US).
How many people born in CH never become Swiss? Because for the US, that number is ~0%.
And before you say: "well the US have different rules", well, ok, but then don't compare us to the US on the other number either, compare us to other EU countries with similar types of rules but different implementations.
CH has stricter naturalization laws than many EU countries and CH has mandatory military service which discourages many males from naturalizing, even those born in the country.
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Only 58% of the voters voted. 55% no is… ok? Typical for such votes? But of course, the SVP have been launching the same initiative since the 70s, they are unlikely to stop now.
>55% no is… ok? Typical for such votes? Very typical, and even higher than usual. The Swiss have votations all the time. They also can vote by mail. Those who didn't vote had no opinion, or no strong opinion, on the matter. Also, cities who should suffer the most of overcrowding by immigrants voted against, as well as cantons situated at the border, while the backcountry who never see any immigrant voted in favor.
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> It's a trend that is growing all over Europe The current system permitting freedom of movement across the continent while devolving immigration policy entirely to members creates a fundamental tension the EU needs to resolve. Because otherwise, Berlin can basically dictate EU immigration single handedly, which is bound to generate backlash even if they run a perfect programme.
To me it seems like EU countries are independently embarking on the Canada-policy of importing a whole bunch of South East Asians and Latin Americans. From Hungary to Ireland, you see the same trend. Part of it is by economic necessity. For example finding nursing staff is very challenging and you have to compete with the US and Australia and other rich countries. But part of it doesn't make much sense. We really don…
I was involved in a startup in the Netherlands. We tried to recruit Dutch people, all wanted safe 9-5 jobs where they would know what they would do in 1-2 years. A startup can not guarantee that.
We ended up with most engineers foreigners, many (but not all) that have studied there.
So I would say that it is also risk and opportunity related. Someone "from outside" will be willing to do more, will have to prove himself, will take more risk. A "local" will have family support, wealth, a network, might want and value stability.
I don't have an opinion about how things "should be", I am just sharing how I saw them (myself an immigrant, multiple times)