Switzerland to issue more visas to skilled workers from non-EU nations

With the increase in demand for workers with high skills, the Government of Switzerland has announced that the visas for overseas skilled workers from the Non-EU nations will be increased. It has decided to give 1,000 additional visas to skilled workers from the nations outside the European Union. Thus next year the number of visas will be increased to 7,500 from the existing 6,500 visas. Many companies and some cantons had complained to the Swiss government that they had already exhausted the visas allotted to them. The decision by the Swiss Government to increase the number of visas is not on par with the mandate given by the people of Switzerland in 2014. In that year people had voted to reduce the number of overseas immigrants to the country. The Government of Switzerland is finding it difficult to execute the people’s initiative votes in a manner that does not directly contradict the mutual agreement with the European Union regarding free movement of people. In 2014 it was decided to reduce the number of immigrant visas to 6,500 from 8,500 to honor the vote of the people. Swiss info was quoted as saying that the Cabinet had decided to decrease the number of visas to motivate companies in Switzerland to make more efficient use of native workers in the country. However, bigger companies in Switzerland disapproved of the decision and complained that there was a scarcity of skilled workers in the Swiss job market. Cantons of Switzerland such as Vaud, Basel City, Zurich, and Geneva have already exhausted their visa quotas. Johann Schneider-Ammann the Economics Minister of Switzerland has said that he would attempt to convince his cabinet colleagues to approve 8,500 immigrant visas. The companies in Switzerland were allowed to hire 6,500 workers from the nations outside the European Union in 2016. Out of these B permit visas are 2,500 and the short-term permits for 12 months L permit visas are 4,000. In the year 2017, the companies will be permitted to hire 3000 overseas workers under the B permits and 4,500 immigrant workers under the L permits.