If 39% American customs duties on Swiss imports are maintained, they could reduce up to 0.4 percentage points over four quarters the gross domestic product (GDP) in Switzerland, UBS economists warned on Friday.
This projection presupposes ‘a 25% drop in Swiss exports to the United States,’ added the Zurich bank experts in a study. ‘US rights of 39% and a depreciation of the dollar of 8% made Swiss exports about 50% more expensive for American buyers’.
The impact on employment would however be limited. ‘0.2% of ETP jobs (full -time equivalents) could be directly threatened and an additional 0.2% indirectly via value channels’, representing 15,000 to 20,000 ETP jobs, calculated bank economists with three keys. The Economiesuisseu Chapel has evaluated that customs duties could affect 100,000 positions in the Confederation.
Limited impact on unemployment
According to experts, the effect on the unemployment rate, at 2.7% in July, will be limited, at least in the short term, because the Swiss system for reducing the work schedule should amortize the shock ‘.
Specialists from the KOF C shortper research institute estimated that, in an extreme case, GDP could fall by 1% and a recession should not be excluded.
In its basic scenario, UBS nevertheless expects the customs duties to be lowered to 15%. The three keys’ bank has therefore unchanged its economic growth projections for the current year and the next one at 1.3% and 1.0% respectively.
/ATS
