Switzerland

Switzerland has long been a model multiethnic, multilingual society, a place in which diverse peoples can live in social harmony and unite in common interest. Switzerland’s cities have emerged as international centres of industry and commerce connected to the larger world, a very different tenor from Switzerland’s isolated, more inward-looking past. Switzerland also exhibits considerable religious diversity. Slightly more than 5 million people work in Switzerland. Switzerland has a more flexible job market than neighbouring countries and the unemployment rate is very low.

Switzerland has a stable, prosperous and high-tech economy and enjoys great wealth, being ranked as the wealthiest country in the world per capita in multiple rankings, while at the same time being one the least corrupt countries in the world. It has the world’s twentieth largest economy by nominal GDP and the thirty-eighth largest by purchasing power parity. It is the seventeenth-largest exporter. Zürich and Geneva are regarded as global cities, ranked as Alpha and Beta respectively. Basel is the capital of the pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland. With its world-class companies, Novartis and Roche, and many other players, it is also one of the world’s most important centres for the life sciences industry.