Swiss social welfare drops for people from non-EU countries

In Switzerland, 6.7% of the 669,100 people from third countries received social assistance in 2022. This figure has fallen slightly by 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous year. From 2015 to 2017, it was around 8.5%. + Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox Some 44,900 people from third countries received social welfare in 2022, as reported by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SEM) on Wednesday. This amounts to a social assistance rate of 6.7%. The social assistance rate of people from third countries is significantly higher than that of people from European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries living in Switzerland (2.3%). The rate for Swiss nationals is 1.9%. Almost half from Europe Most of the people from third countries came from European countries that do not belong to the EU or EFTA (42.8%), followed by people from Africa (26.2%), Asia (19.9%) and the Americas (10.8%). Some 56% of them had a settlement permit ...