One of the tasks of the authors of the TSA was to find out the tourism sector’s shares of GVA and of full-time equivalent employment in the Swiss economy. The nom- inal labour productivity of the tourism sector can be cal- culated based on these two indicators. Therefore, the tourism sectors’ results with respect to labour productiv- ity ought to also serve as the starting point for a mean- ingful discussion of the position of tourism in the Swiss economy as well as a basis for political and economic policy makers. But this discussion should not be limited to the three key indicators of GVA, employment and labour productivity. In a modern service society such as Switzerland, an economic sector such as tourism also has other tasks and characteristics. Unfortunately, the cur- rent TSA does not (yet) make it possible to assemble these data for the tourism sector as a whole. Conse- quently, for the time being we have to make do with data for the hotels and restaurants industry.
© Federal Statistical Office (FSO)
Figure 15: Proportion of foreign workers by industry46 (in per cent)
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Total Agriculture
and forestryManufacturing
and processing industry Construction industry
Trade; repair Hotels and restaurants
Transport an d
communicatio n
Credit and insurance industry
Real estate; rental;computing; R&
D
Public administration;external bodies
Educatio n
Health and social wor k Other services; private households 1998 2001 2005
47 The Swiss Earnings Structure Survey (ESS) is only conducted every two
years. Figure 16 therefore only shows the years 1998, 2002 and 2006. Figure 14 shows that the hotels and restaurants
industry remained by far the industry with the smallest proportion of employees with a higher-level (tertiary level) education and the highest proportion of employ- ees with the lowest level (secondary level I) of educa- tion. The hotels and restaurants industry was also the industry with the highest proportion of foreign employ- ees (Figure 15): while the share of the foreign workforce in the Swiss economy as a whole remained approxi- mately 20% during all three years, in the hotels and res- taurants industry it rose from 37.6% in 1998 to 44.8% in 2005.
Thus, in 2005 the proportion of foreign employees in the hotels and restaurants industry was at least 14 per- centage points above the second-ranked construction industry.
The average gross monthly wage in the hotels and restaurants industry 2006 was still below CHF 4,000, which was the lowest of all industries in the Swiss econ- omy. Figure 1647 shows not only the gross wage level but also, that although the average monthly wage in the hotels and restaurants industry grew steadily, it still lagged far behind that of the other industries.
In an economy with growing demand for ever higher educational standards, these jobs are highly significant. There is already a lack of such jobs in the Swiss labour market. The falling proportion of total employment accounted for by the tourism sector continues to exacer- bate this trend.
46 Swiss labour Force Survey (SlFS), OFS.
© Federal Statistical Office (FSO)
Figure 16: Gross monthly wage (median) by branch of economic activity48
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 Total Manufacturing and processing industry Trade: repair
Hotels and communication
Transport and communication
Credit and insurance industry
Computing; R&D; business
support services Other public an d
personal services
1998 2002 2006
48 Swiss Earnings Structure Survey, FSO.
Unfortunately, just three reference years are not suffi- cient to make a conclusive evaluation of developments that have taken place in the tourism sector. They can at best provide a snapshot of how and where the tourism sector was positioned in the Swiss economy during these three years. The available data do permit us to identify the impact of major events such as 9/11, the Swissair bankruptcy and the development of exchange rates. But deeper insight into the interplay of highly complex influ- encing factors in the tourism sector can only be expected once higher-frequency data over preferably longer time spans are available.
There is, however, no getting around the fact that the tourism sector lost shares of the total GVA. We can also assert with certainty that the tourism sector registered strong growth in nominal labour productivity. But to get to the bottom of the reasons for this development, we need, first of all, periodic calculations based on the speci- fications of the TSAs for 2001 and 2005. Only when uniform calculation standards are employed over multi- ple years, and thus solid time series are obtained, can individual factors be isolated to explain the numerous changes that have occurred in the tourism sector.
The TSAs for 2001 and 2005 already provide a credi- ble data set to serve as a starting point for debates about the role of tourism in Switzerland. A precise evaluation ought to enable all policy makers in politics and business to make decisions based on facts rather than on hypoth- eses.