The number people moving into Switzerland rose again last year,taking the foreign population further above two million. Figures released by the Federal Statistical Office on Friday showed net immigration of European Union (EU)/European Free Trade organization (EFTA) citizens rose by nearly 31000 in 2018, slightly more than in 2017. Overall immigration – which is managed by quotas for foreigners from third countries (including, and for example,the United States) and temporary limits on some newer members of the EU – increased 2.9% to nearly 55000 people. This means that nearly 2.1 million foreigners more than two-thirds of them from the EU and EFTA countries – lived in Switzerland at the end of 2018 (of these, some 400000 were born in Switzerland). The total population is 8.4 million. Italians make up the biggest group of foreigners, or followed by Germans and Portuguese. Free movement? The statistics reach at a time when the country’s free movement of people policy is ...
Source: swissinfo.ch