How AI is tackling the skills shortage in Switzerland

How severe is the skills shortage in Switzerland really?

In 2026, the skills shortage in Switzerland is not a temporary economic phenomenon, but a structural shift: by 2035, the gap could widen to around 460,000 missing full-time positions. The cause does not lie in a weak labour market, but in demographics. The number of people aged over 65 will rise to around 2.7 million by 2055. According to the reference scenario of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), the permanent resident population is expected to grow to around 10.5 million by 2055. While the working-age population is also growing, it is doing so at a much slower pace: for every 100 people aged 20 to 64, there are 38 people aged 65 or older today; by 2055, this figure will be around 51. Fewer and fewer workers will have to generate the economic output for an ageing society, and a strong economy does little to change that.

Registered nurses (HF and FH) are in particularly high demand in the healthcare sector. In the Skills Shortage Index published by the Adecco Group Switzerland and the Swiss Job Market Monitor of the University of Zurich, specialists in healthcare professions have consistently ranked 1st since 2022. Overall, the Job Market Monitor indicates an easing of pressure in 2025 compared to previous years. This easing is genuine, but unevenly distributed: healthcare, construction, and engineering professions remain under strain. According to an analysis by the job platform Publicjobs, the volume of job advertisements in the public and non-profit healthcare sector increased by 13 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year. The KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich recently raised its forecast for 2026 significantly to real GDP growth of 1.9%. Yet even a stronger economy does not resolve the demographic challenge.

The picture collectively painted by economiesuisse, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), and the Job Market Monitor of the University of Zurich is unequivocal: the shortage is concentrated in a few occupational groups, but affects them structurally and permanently. In their joint Job Market Monitor, the Adecco Group Switzerland and the University of Zurich confirm that in 2025, only a small number of occupational groups still exhibited a clear imbalance between supply and demand—and precisely these groups remain the bottlenecks. At the same time, according to the Skills Shortage Index 2025, office, administrative, and commercial professions are among the groups considered to have particularly high exposure to AI. It is precisely there that the greatest leverage for AI-driven automation lies.

Which professions are most heavily affected?

Healthcare, construction, engineering, and education face the greatest pressure, and it is precisely in these sectors that roles require human presence, experience, and judgement that cannot be automated. Nursing, pedagogy, manual trades, and IT security carry very low automation risks because they demand physical presence, situational judgement, or social responsibility.

Healthcare

Qualified nursing staff with HF and FH diplomas as well as healthcare assistants (FaGe) are in short supply throughout Switzerland. Specialist physicians across various disciplines are in high demand, particularly in rural regions. Care requires physical presence and clinical judgement. In the Skills Shortage Index 2025, healthcare professions once again top the ranking, driven in part by the ageing population.

IT

Software developers, cloud architects, and cybersecurity specialists remain vital, but the IT job market has cooled down considerably. According to the Skills Shortage Index 2025, ICT and computer science professions experienced one of the sharpest declines. Demand is shifting towards experienced specialists who develop AI systems and deploy them in operational settings: according to Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, around 32 percent more AI-related jobs were advertised between July 2025 and June 2026 than in the previous year.

Construction and Crafts

Electricians and plumbing installers are lacking across Switzerland. Trade work is location-bound and demands situational judgement. In the Skills Shortage Index 2025, professions in construction management and production management as well as site forepersons occupy 2nd place, while electricians and electronic technicians rank 4th.

Education and Social Work

Primary and lower secondary schools continue to look for teachers, even if the pressure eased slightly in 2025 according to Publicjobs. Social pedagogical roles require relational work that cannot be delegated.

Engineering and Industry

Mechanical engineers and automation specialists are in strong demand in Swiss industry. These professions combine seasoned judgement, systems thinking, and physical presence—attributes that AI structurally cannot replicate. While robotics and automation technology create new production capacities, they do not replace the experts who plan, maintain, and develop these systems.

Why AI does not destroy jobs, but creates new ones

The fear that AI will eliminate jobs en masse is based on a classic misconception: the “lump of labour fallacy”, namely the assumption that work is a finite pie that AI simply consumes. Prof. Dr. Marcel Salathé, Co-Director of the EPFL AI Center, contextualises the fear of mass redundancies in precisely this way: anyone who assumes that AI eliminates thousands of jobs presupposes a fixed amount of work. In reality, more efficient processes give rise to new tasks that require human expertise. However, for Salathé, AI is not a panacea for the skills shortage: the crucial factor is that professionals build competencies in AI and critical thinking early on.

The OECD makes an important distinction: entire occupations do not disappear due to AI; rather, individual tasks within them do. A nurse will not be replaced by AI, but they can hand over part of their documentation workload to AI. In its Future of Jobs Report 2025, the World Economic Forum estimates that technological, demographic, and economic trends will create around 170 million new jobs worldwide by 2030 while displacing 92 million—representing a net gain of 78 million. To understand why AI is not a threat to businesses, it is worth examining these mechanisms more closely.

What AI truly changes is the mix of activities within professions. Administrative support and data entry are considered the most automatable. Healthcare, pedagogy, and manual trades exhibit very low automation risk. AI thereby shifts which qualifications are scarce without replacing professionals across the board. The proportion of entry-level positions in the public sector remained unchanged in 2025 compared to 2024. New roles are emerging while other activities disappear: in addition to technical profiles, significantly more positions are being advertised for Product Owners, Managers, or AI Consultants, according to Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. And the benefit is measurable: in a controlled experiment by MIT, the processing time for writing tasks decreased by 40 percent with AI support, while quality improved by 18 percent.

→ AI is not a job killer, but a task transformer: it takes away what can be automated and frees up capacity for professionals to focus on what only humans can do.

How can AI specifically counteract the skills shortage?

AI cannot replace missing staff, but it can relieve existing professionals of tasks that do not require human expertise. Specifically, AI shifts the activity mix so that professionals can dedicate their time to what machines cannot deliver. The know-how of experienced employees can be preserved before they retire: knowledge that would otherwise be lost upon retirement remains documented and retrievable in structured systems. Businesses operating today with ten percent fewer staff than five years ago can regain capacity through AI-driven automation without having to fill a single new vacancy.

Healthcare

Area: Hospitals, nursing homes, outpatient care
AI task: Handling documentation, report generation, appointment scheduling, and interface management between systems, eliminating the manual transfer of data
Freed-up capacity for staff: Nurses spend more time at the bedside and less time at the computer; specialist physicians focus on diagnostics and treatment decisions

IT

Area: Software development, system administration, cybersecurity
AI task: AI-powered code reviews, automated testing, and anomaly detection
Freed-up capacity for staff: Software developers focus on architectural decisions and complex problem-solving that require contextual system knowledge

Construction and Industry

Area: Construction project management, production planning, quality assurance
AI task: AI planning tools support scheduling and early-warning systems for project delays
Freed-up capacity for staff: Engineers and site forepersons can concentrate on on-site decisions and trade quality control that demand physical presence

Administration and SMEs

Area: Accounting, payroll, reporting, customer communications
AI task: Automated receipt processing, payment reconciliation, report generation, and data transfers between systems
Freed-up capacity for staff: Administrative staff dedicate their time to client contact, handling exceptions, and strategic tasks that require judgement

AI literacy, prompt engineering, and critical thinking are the new core qualifications for professionals across all sectors. Those who start today position themselves for the evolving job market. To see how this works in practice, explore the article on implementing AI in your business.

What this means for your business

Those operating with fewer staff cannot afford to spend hours on administrative routines. nextesy automates receipt capture, payment matching, and payroll accounting for Swiss SMEs, helping the existing team become more productive without the need to hire additional staff. Rooted in the academic environment of ETH Zurich and supported by Innosuisse, our AI-native approach is specifically tailored to the real bottlenecks faced by small and medium-sized enterprises in Switzerland.