20 Minutes.
Foreign residents close to Switzerland’s borders continue to be drawn to the country to work. In 2016, the number of cross-border workers climbed by 11,300 to close to 320,000. After slowing, the number crossing into the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino is on the rise again.
Ticino – more than 1 in 4 workers live in Italy
In 2011, there were 251,700 crossing into Switzerland to work. In 2016 there were 318,500, an increase of 26.6%, according to recent statistics from the Federal Statistics Office.
The increase in the number of cross-border workers has grown at three times the pace of Switzerland’s total workforce.
More than half, the largest share, lives in France. Around one fifth live in Germany and another fifth in Italy.
More than a third of the total, work across the Lake Geneva region, where year-on-year growth was 5.4%. North western Switzerland (Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft and Aargau), where the second largest number of day-tripping workers are, grew 2.1%. In Ticino the number grew 3% across the year. While the number of cross-border workers  in the Italian-speaking canton is relatively modest compared to the Lake Geneva region, they represent a whopping 27.1% of the total workforce, a fact that makes for lively local politics.
More on this:
20 Minutes article  (in French)  - Take a 5 minute French test now
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