(Geneva) Tens of thousands of jobs could disappear in Switzerland following the mega-merger between the first and the second bank of the country and the unions are already demanding a rescue plan for the employees of UBS and Swiss credit.
The express but reluctant rescue of Credit Suisse by UBS under pressure from the government and regulatory authorities sent shock waves through the country, where the banking sector weighs heavily.
“The stakes are huge for the 17,000 CS employees in Switzerland. Directly or indirectly, tens of thousands of jobs are potentially at risk”, warns the Swiss Trade Union Union (USS) on Tuesday.
“Many jobs are at risk,” acknowledged the Swiss Association of Bank Employees (ASEB), warning that the uncertainty currently facing Credit Suisse employees was “extremely stressful”.
“A storm is brewing, but no one knows if it will hit them,” the Association points out.
UBS is to pay an almost symbolic sum of 3 billion Swiss francs (just over three billion euros) in shares for agreeing to take over a bank on the verge of collapse.
To make the pill easier to swallow, the federal state offers a guarantee of 9 billion francs in the event of a bad surprise and the central bank makes available up to 100 billion if necessary.
But it is the redundancies of the two largest banks in Switzerland and elsewhere that worry employees.
The two giants currently have around 120,000 employees worldwide, including around 37,000 in Switzerland.
But once the mega-merger is consummated, there is no doubt that many of these jobs will become redundant.
The two brands – the sails for Credit Suisse and the three keys for UBS – are present in many cities in Switzerland, often side by side and with a very similar offer.
Redundancies are therefore numerous and the think tank BAK Economics warned on Monday that no less than 12,000 Swiss-based employees at the two banks could see their jobs disappear.
Experts seemed to agree that the jobs most at risk were among Credit Suisse staff, and in particular the roughly 17,000 people working in Switzerland as well as a similar number of employees in its investment banking unit.
It is through it that many of the scandals that have undermined the credibility of Credit Suisse have happened and UBS has warned that this branch of activity will be significantly reduced.
However, UBS employees are not immune.
If two jobs are redundant, it is not certain that it will always be the UBS employee who remains.
“We risk ending up on the market with a lot of people who have financial skills, but more work,” warned Stephane Garelli, professor at the International Institute for Management Development on public radio RTS.
The Ethos Foundation, which represents pension funds in Switzerland and holds stakes in the two banks, has urged the Swiss authorities and UBS to sell the national activities of Credit Suisse, considered to be healthy.
“This would preserve jobs and maintain healthy competition, which ensures the proper functioning of our economy,” she said.
Swiss unions, for their part, demanded on Tuesday that banks and governments launch a vast “rescue plan” for affected employees.
“Rescuing banks must also mean rescuing jobs,” said ASEB, which set up a task force including people from UBS and government-backed Credit Suisse to put in place a rescue plan for staff.
Among other things, it calls for “a freeze on layoffs until the end of 2023”.
While there is currently a shortage of skilled workers in the Swiss financial sector, the association fears that the number of job cuts is too high for the labor market to absorb.
According to the USS, the two banks “have a responsibility to avoid brutal job cuts […] Credit Suisse employees must not pay for the mistakes made by their managers and the authorities. »