At its headquarters in Basel, Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding employs workers from more than 100 countries. In less than a month, the access to international talent that it has long enjoyed could come under serious threat.
On June 14, Switzerland will vote on a plan to cap the population at 10 million. With the number already above 9.1 million, annual migration would have to drop by at least half to avoid reaching the ceiling by 2050, as proposed in the initiative. That would affect businesses from manufacturers to banks to tech firms, who have in recent decades brought hundreds of thousands of people into the country to fill jobs.
Roche¡¯s chairman, Severin Schwan, has called it ¡°dangerous for our society and for the economy.¡±
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