Working while unemployed in Switzerland: what is allowed and what it costs

Working part time while unemployed

Working is allowed and actively wanted. The income counts as intermediate earnings, and the compensation payment ensures you are not worse off for taking it. As of 7 September 2026.

Two situations the law keeps apart

Article 10 of the unemployment insurance act distinguishes full from partial unemployment. You are fully unemployed if you are not party to an employment relationship and are seeking full-time work. You are partly unemployed if you are not in an employment relationship and are only seeking part-time work, or if you hold a part-time job and are seeking a full-time job or a second part-time one. Both are insured. The widespread belief that a running contract cancels your claim appears nowhere in the statute.

The first case is yours if you kept a 60 per cent post and want to replace the missing 40 per cent. The second is yours if you take on something smaller than the job you lost while your claim is running. Legally this is not an exception carved out for hardship cases; it is the route back into the labour market that the legislator designed.

Two boundaries come with it. A worker whose normal hours were temporarily cut is on short-time work and is not partly unemployed (art. 10 para. 2bis). And you only count as unemployed once you have signed on for placement (art. 10 para. 3) — the clock starts at registration, not at the date on your termination letter.

Article 11 paragraph 1 adds a floor: a work stoppage is only taken into account if it causes a loss of earnings and lasts at least two consecutive full working days. A workload trimmed by a few hours a week therefore creates no entitlement at all.

How the fund offsets what you earn

Under article 24 paragraph 1, temporary earnings are any income from employed or self-employed activity earned within a control period, and a control period is any calendar month. You are entitled to compensation for the resulting loss of earnings, at the rate set by article 22: 80 per cent if you have maintenance obligations towards children under 25, if your insured salary does not exceed CHF 3797, or if you receive a disability pension corresponding to at least 40 per cent; 70 per cent in every other case.

A worked example makes it concrete. Insured salary CHF 6000, rate 70 per cent, so a benefit of roughly CHF 4200 a month. Take a job at 50 per cent paying CHF 3000 and the loss of earnings is CHF 3000; the compensation payment is 70 per cent of that, CHF 2100. Together CHF 5100 instead of CHF 4200 — about a fifth more, for work that keeps your profile current.

The loss of earnings is the difference between your insured salary and the temporary earnings, and the earnings are counted at no less than the rate customary for that occupation and place (art. 24 para. 3). That clause is both the strongest protection in the article and its most common disappointment: if you work well below the going rate, the fund still calculates with the customary wage, and the gap between the customary wage and your actual pay stays yours to carry. Underpayment is not subsidised by the insurance.

Compensation exists only while the income is lower than the benefit you would otherwise receive (art. 41a para. 1 of the ordinance). Earn more than that and you no longer need it — you are simply back in work, and the claim rests.

How long the compensation lasts

Article 24 paragraph 4 sets the limit: the right to compensation for the loss of earnings exists for at most the first twelve months of the activity. For insured persons with maintenance obligations towards children under 25, and for those over 45, it runs until the end of the benefit period. It is one of the few places where the act consistently treats older claimants and parents better.

After that the logic inverts. Article 41a paragraph 2 of the ordinance provides that once there is no further right to compensation payments, an income from 70 per cent of the insured salary upwards counts as suitable — meaning you must accept such a job, with no top-up. Income from work that is not suitable is simply deducted from the benefit in that phase (art. 41a para. 4).

While compensation is running, the exception in article 16 paragraph 2 letter i applies: work paying less than 70 per cent of your insured salary is in principle unsuitable, unless you receive compensation payments as part of temporary earnings. That is precisely why you may take clearly smaller assignments during this window without them being held against you.

Declare it before you start

The duty to cooperate, as arbeit.swiss puts it, requires you to inform both the RAV and your unemployment fund of every change affecting your entitlement — earning temporary income is the first example listed, alongside starting self-employment, illness, accident and the birth of a child. In practice: contract or assignment confirmation to the fund, the work entered on the "details of the insured person" form at month end, payslip filed afterwards.

Skipping that risks more than a late payment. Article 30 paragraph 1 letter e lists false or incomplete statements and any breach of the duty to inform as a ground for suspension in its own right; letter f covers obtaining benefit unlawfully. A suspension lasts at most 60 days per ground and is measured by the degree of fault (art. 30 para. 3). Benefit drawn without entitlement must be repaid, and arbeit.swiss names a criminal complaint as a possible consequence.

One trap surprises many people. Where an employment relationship is resumed within a year between the same parties, or continued after a notice of amendment, the temporary earnings are not taken into account and no benefit is due if the hours were cut and the associated pay cut is disproportionate, or if the hours stayed the same and only the pay was cut (art. 41a para. 3 of the ordinance). Going back to your old employer on worse terms is not something the insurance will subsidise.

What does not change about your obligations

A part-time workload releases you from nothing. Article 17 paragraph 1 still requires you to do everything reasonable to shorten your unemployment and to be able to prove your efforts. The proof must reach the RAV by the fifth day of the following month for each control period (art. 26 para. 2 of the ordinance), and the office reviews it monthly (art. 26 para. 3). Counselling interviews and assigned labour market measures continue unchanged (art. 17 para. 3).

This is where temporary earnings fail in practice — not on the money, on the calendar. Somebody suddenly working four days a week has one evening for the required applications instead of a week. Raise the monthly number of job-search efforts with your RAV counsellor before you start: the workload is a circumstance they can take into account when setting it, and a number agreed in advance is far easier than an explanation offered afterwards.

What helps is a record that produces the proof as a by-product: date, company, role, channel, outcome — one line per application, written the moment you send it rather than reconstructed at month end. Someone job-hunting around a work schedule has no spare evening for reconstruction.

Where the part-time roles actually are

In the SwissJobs.app index, 22.0 per cent of adverts state a workload as a percentage in the title, and 73.5 per cent of those would accept less than a full workload. Across the whole index, 5.7 per cent of adverts name a workload starting at 60 per cent or below, and 3.3 per cent at 50 per cent or below. So reduced workloads are common — but genuinely small ones are a narrow segment, and that is the segment that leaves room for applications and RAV appointments.

The shape of the offer matters more than the headline. Among adverts that state a workload, 45.6 per cent start at 80 per cent — the familiar "80–100%" formula — and only 15.0 per cent go down to 50 per cent or lower. Meanwhile 57.5 per cent state a range rather than a fixed figure, and in 99.3 per cent of those ranges the lower bound is 80 per cent or less. A range is an invitation to negotiate; a flat "100%" in the title usually is not.

The language an advert is written in changes the picture more than the region does, which is why the chart above is drawn that way. German-language adverts carry a part-time signal in 27.1 per cent of cases, French ones in 15.6 per cent, English ones in 8.2 per cent, Italian ones in 6.4 per cent. Much of that gap is writing convention rather than labour market reality: German-speaking employers put the workload in the job title, French, Italian and English-language adverts frequently leave it to the body text or to the interview. If you search in English in Switzerland, filtering on a stated part-time workload will hide most of what would actually be open to you — ask instead.

By field, the concentration is stark. Among adverts with medical job titles, close to two thirds allow a workload below 100 per cent; in nursing and care roles it is over half; in commercial and administrative roles roughly a third; in retail about a quarter; in IT roles a little under a quarter, almost all of it the "80–100%" pattern rather than genuinely small workloads; in hospitality and construction around a sixth. Health care and education are the two fields where a real half-time role is a normal advert rather than a special request.

Side earnings and self-employment: two special cases

Not every franc you earn is temporary earnings. Article 23 paragraph 3 defines side earnings as any income earned outside your normal working hours as an employee, or outside the ordinary scope of your self-employed activity. Such earnings are not insured — and they are expressly left out of the loss-of-earnings calculation (art. 24 para. 3). The Saturday choir you already directed alongside your old full-time job therefore does not reduce your benefit. You still have to declare it: whether something qualifies as side earnings is the fund’s call, not yours.

Self-employed income follows its own arithmetic. It is counted in the control period in which the work was performed, not the period in which the invoice is paid. Documented material and goods costs are deducted from the gross income, and the remainder is then reduced by a flat 20 per cent for other work-related expenses (art. 41a para. 5 of the ordinance). If you freelance, keep the dates of the work and the receipts for materials from day one.

A final case sits in article 24 paragraph 5. If, in order to avoid unemployment, you accept a full-time job for at least one whole control period that pays less than the benefit you would be entitled to, the two-day rule of article 11 paragraph 1 does not apply during those periods. The badly paid full-time job is topped up rather than penalised.

Intermediate earnings: am I worse off?

The short answer is no. Unemployment insurance partly makes up the difference to your allowance, so that a lower-paid job never works out against you. As of 7 September 2026.

Three elements, and none of them is "short"

The statutory wording carries exactly three tests. The work must be gainful activity, employed or self-employed. The income must be earned inside a control period — one calendar month. And it must fall below the benefit you would otherwise draw for that period. Meet all three and the fund owes you compensation for the loss of earnings; fail the third and there is simply nothing to compensate.

What the definition leaves out matters as much. There is no minimum or maximum duration, no ceiling on hours, no requirement that the contract be fixed-term. English speakers reading "interim" or "temporary earnings" reasonably assume a stopgap of a few weeks. The law makes no such assumption: it looks at one month's pay and compares it with your insured earnings.

The comparison has a floor built into it. Article 24 paragraph 3 UIA defines the loss of earnings as the difference between the interim earnings actually achieved in the control period — but at least the rate customary for the occupation and the locality — and the insured earnings. SECO's FAQ puts the same rule plainly: temporary earnings must be paid in the usual way for the location and occupation. Work below that customary rate and the shortfall stays with you; the insurance does not make it good.

What is expressly excluded

First, secondary income. Article 23 paragraph 3 UIA treats as a secondary income any earnings from employment outside your normal working hours, or from activity outside the ordinary scope of your self-employment. Such income is not insured, and Article 24 paragraph 3 UIA says it is disregarded when the loss of earnings is calculated. The test looks backwards: what matters is whether the sideline already ran alongside your previous job. Whether it qualifies is for the fund to decide, so you declare it either way.

Second, publicly financed labour market measures. Article 23 paragraph 3bis UIA excludes income earned within a labour market measure financed by the public purse from insurance cover, subject to the measures under Articles 65 and 66a; Article 38 UIO defines those measures as integration measures financed wholly or partly from public funds. SECO draws the practical conclusion in its FAQ: you do not normally earn contribution periods from a placement in a measure funded by the unemployment insurance. For anyone counting months towards a future claim, that distinction is the one to watch.

Third, going back to the employer you just left. Where the employment relationship is resumed within one year between the same parties, or continued after notice was given to change its terms, the interim earnings are not taken into account and no benefit is due if the hours were cut and the pay cut was disproportionate, or if the hours stayed the same and only the pay was cut (Art. 41a para. 3 UIO).

And fourth, income that is simply too large. Once your monthly earnings exceed the benefit you would be entitled to, the compensation claim falls away for that period — not as a penalty, but because the difference the law compensates no longer exists.

The month is the unit — and the clock runs

Because the control period is a calendar month, the paperwork is monthly too. You transmit your control data on the form "Angaben der versicherten Person" — "Indications de la personne assurée" in French. Article 23 paragraph 2 UIO says that data covers the working days on which you make it credible that you were unemployed and fit for placement, plus every fact material to the assessment of your entitlement; the ordinance names interim earnings explicitly, alongside illness, military service, holiday absence and participation in a labour market measure. The competent office must make sure you have the form at the end of the month.

For the second and every subsequent control period, Article 29 paragraph 2 UIO asks for two documents plus anything else the fund needs: that form, and the employer's certificates of interim earnings. An assignment that is never certified is an assignment the settlement cannot see. If you cannot prove a fact by certificate, Article 29 paragraph 4 UIO lets the fund exceptionally accept a signed declaration where it appears credible — an exception, not a route.

The deadline is shorter than most people expect. Article 20 paragraph 3 UIA extinguishes the claim if it is not asserted within three months of the end of the control period it relates to; benefits that could not be paid out lapse three years after that period ends. A certificate for a spring assignment handed in during the autumn is late for that month regardless of how well founded the claim was.

Taking holiday during an assignment

One provision that rarely surfaces in summaries changes what summer looks like on the statement. Under Article 27 paragraph 4 UIO, an insured person who takes the holiday due under the employment contract while earning interim earnings keeps the entitlement to payments under Article 41a for that time. The compensation payment continues while you are away.

The same paragraph names the price: holiday days taken during the interim earnings are deducted from the control-free days accumulated up to the start of the holiday. Control-free days accrue after every 60 days of controlled unemployment within the framework period — five consecutive days each time, freely chosen (Art. 27 para. 1 UIO). Holiday during an assignment therefore costs you freedom from control rather than money.

Control-free days must be announced to the competent office at least 14 days in advance, and without an excusable reason they count as taken even if you do not take them (Art. 27 para. 3 UIO). Anyone planning time off in the middle of an assignment is better off settling the sequence with their advisor first.

What survives the assignment

Two effects outlast the work itself. The first is contribution time. SECO's FAQ states that interim earnings earn you new contribution periods — with the exception already noted for assignments inside a measure funded by the unemployment insurance. Those are the months that would count towards a future framework period.

The second concerns your insured earnings, and it only moves in one direction. Article 37 paragraph 4 letter a UIO provides that the insured earnings are redefined during the benefit framework period where the insured person has worked for at least six uninterrupted months in contributory employment at a salary above the insured earnings and becomes unemployed again; letter b covers a change in the extent of the countable loss of work. A small, lower-paid assignment does not trigger that recalculation.

Read together, the rules describe a category the legislature designed rather than tolerated: a way of working inside a framework period without stepping outside the insurance. What it is worth in an individual case is a calculation, and the fund you chose is the body that must tell you how the daily allowance and the offsetting are computed.

Where the short assignments sit in the Swiss market

Because the category is defined by arithmetic rather than by contract, you cannot search for interim earnings as a filter. What can be counted is the opposite: how often an advert says of its own accord that the post is temporary, fixed-term, seasonal, on-call or a cover assignment. Across the Swiss adverts held by SwissJobs.app that share is 2.2 per cent. The large majority say nothing about duration at all, which does not mean the job cannot end up as interim earnings.

For an English-speaking jobseeker the language of the advert matters more than the label. English-language adverts make up 19.2 per cent of the stock, but only 1.0 per cent of them carry an explicit temporary or fixed-term signal, against 3.1 per cent of German-language adverts and 2.3 per cent of French ones. Searching only in English does not merely narrow the market; it hides the corner of it where short assignments are advertised as such.

The occupational skew points the same way. Adverts in care and support flag a temporary or on-call arrangement in 8.3 per cent of cases, hospitality in 4.7 per cent, retail in 3.6 per cent, office and administration in 3.0 per cent, medicine and therapy in 2.8 per cent, construction, trades and logistics in 2.0 per cent — and IT and engineering, the field most likely to advertise in English, in 0.4 per cent. Adverts carrying such a signal also state a workload percentage in the title far more often, 41.9 per cent against 22.4 per cent of all adverts, which makes it easier to judge in advance whether an assignment leaves room for the applications and the monthly proof your RAV still expects.