Job security in journalism is not an issue that the Association of Swiss Media (VSM) deals with. In the wake of a media crisis that has been making itself felt for more than a decade, with a steady decline in advertising revenues, job security for media workers has also declined. In 2010, the union Comedia reported 1,465 media workers as unemployed. Reorganisations, job cuts, and centralisation of reporting are decimating both employed and freelance media workers. The latter, in particular, receive fewer orders and lower compensation. But even the trade union has no current data on the length of time spent in the profession. In German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino, there are no regulations on dismissals at sectoral level, as there has been no collective labour agreement since 2004.
In the opinion of the interview participants, the situation at the public broadcaster SRG SSR is still satisfactory with regard to job security. However, the days of people having a secure job at SRG until retirement, are over. There is, however, a collective labour agreement [Gesamtarbeitsvertrag] which provides a certain degree of protection for all employees. In any case, the SRG also carries out redundancies, or forces employees over 60 to take early retirement, or even leave the profession.
Some time ago, Vinzenz Wyss surveyed the job security of media workers in an essay on the how Swiss journalism was becoming precarious. While SRG SSRemployees overall scored 2.3 in 2008 (1 = satisfied; 6 = dissatisfied), the print journalists represented a figure of 3.5 and online media, 4.2, both significantly less favourable (Wyss, 2012). Looking at the current industry reports, job security is likely to decline even further in the future. The long-standing problem of financing journalism has prompted much of daily media to reduce its output. The industry itself assumes that the number of media companies in Switzerland will fall or stagnate over the next five years and that the media offerings produced by these companies will decline (UVEK, 2020). Overall, the majority of respondents assume that the number of employed media workers will “decrease slightly or sharply” (UVEK, 2020: 10). UVEK also sees strongly disruptive tendencies towards the Swiss media system and especially daily newspapers. These include a sharp decline in advertising revenues and print circulation. As a result, further title mergers, editorial mergers, and job cuts are likely to occur, from which, the diversity of content and journalistic opinion is likely to suffer (EMEK, 2020).
