I chose the south side of the Alps for the lifestyle, but the jobs chose the north
I've been living in Lugano for almost a year, and I really like it here. Life is relaxed and peaceful. But whenever I look for a job, most of the roles I'm interested in seem to be on the other side of the Alps.
Do I really have to think about moving every time I want to change jobs?
I added up the new job postings my own project picked up across Switzerland last week, from 5–9 October:
- Zürich had 3,917, compared with 270 in all of Ticino. That's about 14.5 times as many.
- Ticino had 41–67 new postings a day. Zürich had 722–846.
- Nationwide, the biggest categories were finance, healthcare, office/admin and IT infrastructure. Plenty going on, just not necessarily close to home.
Obviously, this doesn't cover every vacancy, and I haven't adjusted the numbers for population. I know Zürich is much bigger. Still, seeing the gap laid out like this is a bit depressing.
People living in Ticino, how do you make it work? Does anyone here commute to Zürich regularly? I struggle to imagine spending four or five hours travelling every day. Have you found good opportunities locally, or a hybrid job that lets you stay here? I'd be interested to hear what's worked for you.