In pondering this, I wonder if the opposite is the case, that jacking up the minimum wage might work against hiring foreigners.
That is, Switzerland has very tight employment rules, that are strictly enforced. It is already quite hard to hire foreigners, and it is getting even harder, and more expensive.
So if the minimum wage is $10/hr, it already might cost marginally more, all things considered, to hire a foreigner. And if they jack up the wage to $15/hr, it may cost perhaps $17-20 to hire them in the future.
In other words, a very different model than is seen in the rest of the developed world.
In any event, it will be interesting to see what happens, from an economics point of view.
The people of Switzerland are opposed to endless ‘immigration’ just like the people of the United States are against endless illegal immigration. Ask the obvious - who benefits?
Who’s behind the push FOR more immigrants?
I can assure you it’s NOT a bunch of people who ‘love the downtrodden’ ( it’s not the wide eyed rent-a-mob young student paid ‘protesters’ liberal elites hire to be their window dressing... Nope - it’s industrialists and agribusiness moguls who want cheap labor.
In the US the same people who want illegals here (willing to work for two to four dollars an hour) are the same people who constantly want to raise the minimum wage. There’s no conflict in that position. It’s why the scramble is on to get more illegals into the country while NOT hiring the last bunch that was made legal...
http://www.onislam.net/english/news/europe/469059-switzerland-set-to-ban-immigration-.html
CAIRO – Endangering its relations with the European Union, Switzerland votes on Sunday, February 9, on a proposal to curb immigration to the wealthy country that was introduced by a far-right party, which championed a ban on the building of mosque minarets.
“We have too much immigration,” Toni Brunner, the head of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), said in an interview with German radio station SWR, Deutsche Welle reported on Saturday, February 9.
“We have created the initiative because it’s really become excessive.