The Wall Street Journal posted a remarkably balanced article about the economic impacts of migration on the Swiss population.
“For years, Western politicians pitched immigration as a cure-all—or at least a necessary evil—for the ills of aging societies … fix labor shortages, underfunded pension systems and lackluster productivity growth,” the newspaper reported on June 12 as it described a pending national ballot to bar migration if the population hits 10 million.
The “No to a 10 million Switzerland!” ballot will be voted on this weekend. It was posted by the nation’s moderate nationalist party, the Swiss People’s Party.
The article is surprising because it quotes many authoritative Swiss professionals who oppose mass migration, even as the newspaper’s own editorial board strongly favors the mass inflow of migants into the U.S. economy. It is also surprising because most reporters do not have the desire or editorial backing to investigate the economic reality of migration.
“It was a bit surprising, but I was very happy to see that story,” said Jeremy Beck, the co-president of NumbersUSA, which advocates for moderate immigration levels. He told Breitbart News:
The Wall Street Journal has typically been a promoter of the idea that the more immigration … is a cheat code to just grow GDP [Gross Domestic Product]. The article acknowledges very real trade-offs [for example,] that there are citizens who are actually harmed when their wages go down, their opportunities go down, and their the cost of living goes up.
“Switzerland is a laboratory for that right now,” he added.
Swiss elites told the newspaper that migration reduces the marketplace pressure to raise employees’ productivity — via AI, robots, and automation — that helps them win greater prosperity:
Immigration can provide an economic boost if migrants are more highly skilled than the general population, [Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at Canada’s University of Waterloo] said. But if their skills broadly match the population, it will likely have little impact on productivity or labor shortages.
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In Switzerland, the large number of EU [European Union] immigrants has likely held down Swiss salaries and weighed on productivity growth, said Bertschi Group Executive Chairman Hans-Jörg Bertschi, whose logistics company has around 3,000 employees. “The pressure to improve productivity in industries and the service sectors has disappeared,” he said.
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Local firms can generate growth without more workers thanks to AI, [district finance minister Heinz Tännler] argues. And with less foreign competition, local workers might benefit from greater opportunities, he said. Switzerland, for example, imports thousands of doctors even though “I know many who would like to study medicine but can’t” because of local medical-school quotas.
Migration undermines the wages and housing that enable population growth and political stability, the Swiss elites said.
[Because of migration] the city [of Zug] now boasts bigger supermarkets, more international schools and sports clubs, an array of fancy restaurants—and more traffic. Historic villas are giving way to multiple condominiums. “It’s sad,” [Anja Beck, a German-born real-estate agent] said. “It’s going to be all flats.” Housing costs have surged: A family home starts at around $8,000 to $9,200 a month to rent, or $3.5 million to buy, said Beck. The vacancy rate in 2023 was 0.42%, among the lowest in Switzerland.
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Thomas Matter, a wealthy banker and SVP lawmaker who helped initiate the referendum [said] mass immigration is a Ponzi scheme, he said, because newcomers also need goods and services, including, eventually, caregivers. He argued that immigration was like a sugar high for an economy: It lifts top-line growth, but has struggled to lift GDP per capita, the more important metric.
Immigration allows politicians to ignore difficult issues, such as ageing populations, the Swiss experts told the Wall Street Journal:
“Immigration is the lazy solution,” said Peter Letter, a Zug businessman leading the local business lobby’s No campaign against the population cap. Access to the vast European labor market means that businesses can fail to look closer to home, he said.
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While immigration can buy time for politicians to address the challenges of aging populations, they don’t solve the problem for good since the newcomers also age, said Alan Manning, economics professor at the London School of Economics. To avoid the economic effects of aging altogether would require implausible and rising numbers of immigrants, Manning said.
In recent years, many pro-migration advocates, investors, and experts in the United States have quietly reversed or moderated their views on migration, despite intense elite pressure to keep silent.
But interest groups often dodge the issues by claiming that migration is good for America — regardless of the impact it has on many millions of Americans. For example, Stanford University’s Lucas Guttentag argued on July 11:
The labor force is declining. We need immigrants for the labor force. We need it for particular parts of the economy, but we need it across the board. Everything from Silicon Valley to home healthcare to the nursing area, to the agricultural area. Immigration is critical, and we need a system that can respond to that need, and it’s in everyone’s interest to have that system. It’s a source of strength for the United States, not a reason to be fearful.
That perspective prompted Americans to elect Donald Trump in 2016 and 2024.
Similar claims are made by many European officials, even as the continent’s politics are being upended by near-universal public opposition to elite-backed mass migration, imposed diversity, and resulting economic poverty.
Breitbart News has covered many aspects of the migration debate, including its role in national economic policy, its impact on wages, on housing and families, on productivity, and on developing countries. Migration also transfers wealth from young people to older investors and homeowners.
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