Living and Working in Switzerland, Tenth Edition: A Survival Handbook

Paperback - 25 September, 2005 - Survival Books, Ltd.
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By: David Hamsphire
ISBN: 190113024X

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Reviews by readers

Essential information if you're going to move to Switzerland

This book will prepare you to move to Switzerland. If you are American, and think moving from the US to Switzerland will be like moving from NY to California, you need this book!

Switzerland, and most European countries, have rules, regulations, and customs that most Americans could never imagine. This book will help you through this maze. I was given this book as part of my move package by my employer, and it made things very smooth. I subsequently met many people who had moved to CH without this guide, and they made lots of mistakes that cost them a lot of money.

One example - if you use your existing driver's license to get a Swiss driver's license within the first year you live here, it costs about 40 USD. If you wait until after a year, you have to go through the very expensive driver's training system and testing, and it can cost hundreds or thousands. Really. That tidbit alone was a major hassle saver. None of my Swiss collegues knew about this issue, so you can't count on talking to locals to get much of the information that is in this book.

Even after living here over 15 years, I still refer to this book from time to time. It is a *must have* if you are really moving to Switzerland.

Switzerland

I purchased this book in anticipation of a possible move to Switzerland. Having just visited Basel, I feel it necessary to warn potential buyers that the numbers presented by the author seem very far off from the actual numbers. For example, he suggests that the "average" price for a four-bedroom house or apartment in Basel would be 1500 CHF per month (rental). The real number is double that (at least--if it is even possible to find a four-bedroom place). Further, he suggests that it would be possible for a couple to spend 600 CHF per month on food. (He gives that number as a minimum.) A stroll through both an ordinary and a gourmet grocery store reveals that a couple *might* be able to live on that small an amount, but only if one lived on pasta for the month and did not go out even once --not for lunch, not for a drink. To give some actual numbers I just paid: two of us spent 20 CHF on three beers in a local bar, 230 CHF on a nice meal for two with wine, and 40 CHF for two bratwurst and three beers in a bar. These were all meals eaten out, obviously, but the point is that the author seems on the one hand to acknowledge that many people planning to move to Switzerland will be filthy rich (he encourages job seekers to remember to ask whether the company will pay for limosines, live-in domestic help, regular flights back to one's home country, and fees for private school), but on the other seems to believe that one will never go out to eat the whole time one is in Switzerland. Some portions of this book will be helpful for those planning to move to Switzerland--he does provide useful information on Swiss laws and customs--but potential readers should be aware that the book is entirely unclear on its intended audience. The wealthy will find parts of the book laughable, while the less well off will get quite a shock if they move to Switzerland using a budget based on the author's numbers.