Switzerland: Renewal of the collective agreement for the staffing sector

Social partners of the staffing sector agreed to renew the collective agreement on outsourcing of services (“Location de services”) valid for the entire country and signed the first time in 2012.
The collective agreement defines working conditions and remuneration steps, as well as training possibilities and social security conditions.

The social partners (Swisstaffing, the Unia and Syna unions, the Société des Employees de Commerce et Employees Suisse) considered it “important to ensure that fair working conditions and practice were maintained for temporary workers and outsourcing companies. The renewal of the agreement is a positive signal for the branch and for some 380,000 employees who offer their service each year through more than 800 service providers.”

Through the agreement the social partners also decided to continue their bipartite training fund “Temptraining” and allowing temporary workers to benefit from an allowance of up to CHF5,000 for participation in training courses. The fund has been dealing with more than 66,000 requests for a value of CHF70 million.

The renewed agreement introduced a wage adjustment for 2022 and 2023 with a double increase of CHF40 for low skilled workers and CHF25 for skilled workers, and harmonisation in terms of the minimum wage applicable.

Finally, the parties asked the State Secretariat of the Economy (SECO) to declare the new agreement binding for a period of three years starting on 1^st January 2020, and to extend its scope to the entire category of workers of the sector.