In the shadows of the Alps, Swiss companies are confronting a new reality: They won’t be adding manufacturing jobs in the country anytime soon -- not for humans, anyway.
Faced with an unsinkable franc and among the highest average annual wages in the world, Swiss companies looking to expand face a simple choice: add robots or leave. Fragrance-maker Firmenich International SA chose robots, spending $60 million in the last three years automating a factory outside Geneva to increase capacity by a third with no added staff. In contrast, pump maker Sulzer AG, is closing a facility outside Winterthur, in the canton of Zurich, to move production elsewhere in Europe, which will cost Switzerland 90 jobs.