Demography, talent and the cross-border workforce

An ageing canton

Ticino is one of the oldest cantons of Switzerland, whose age structure will change more quickly than the national one over the next quarter of a century. USTAT's demographic scenarios of April 2025 start from a resident population of 357,720 at the end of 2023. In the medium scenario the population grows slowly to 365,240 in 2030 and 370,567 in 2040 before stagnating at about 370,000 in 2050. The share of persons aged 65 and over rises from 23.7 per cent in 2023 to 26.8 per cent in 2030 and 31.0 per cent in 2040. The share of persons aged 80 and over rises from 7.7 to 10.4 per cent over the same period and then rises faster, to 14.2 per cent in 2050. In absolute terms USTAT expects 52,490 persons aged 80 and over at the end of 2050, almost twice the 27,698 recorded at the end of 2023. The working-age population between 15 and 64 falls from 63.7 per cent of the total to 57.2 per cent in 2040, and the old-age dependency ratio, which relates the number of persons aged 65 and over to the number of persons of working age, climbs from 37.1 to 54.3.¹ The range between the scenarios is wide. By 2050 the high scenario reaches 400,018 inhabitants and the low scenario 340,564, depending mainly on net migration, which the medium scenario puts at 2,200 persons a year.²

The growth that does occur rests entirely on migration. The natural balance of births and deaths was already negative in 2024, at minus 1,067, and is projected to deteriorate to minus 1,878 by 2050. The number of persons aged 15 to 64 falls in absolute terms from 227,999 to 207,151.³ The head of USTAT, Pau Origoni, summarized the change in an image: where Ticino once counted two young people for every elderly person, it will count two elderly persons for every young person by the middle of the century. He also pointed to an annual net loss of young residents to other cantons and abroad.⁴ The federal scenarios published in the same month show the contrast with the rest of the country. Switzerland as a whole is projected to grow by about 15 per cent to 10.5 million inhabitants by 2055, while Ticino is expected to grow by about 3 per cent to some 371,000.⁵

The ageing of the banking workforce

For the financial centre the demographic change has two faces. The first concerns the workforce. USTAT's report on money and banks of March 2026 states that about 43 per cent of bank employees in Ticino are older than fifty and that the baby boom generation will reach retirement age in the next ten to fifteen years.⁶ If the share is applied to the 5,584 persons employed by banks in 2023, about 2,400 employees will leave the banks for reasons of age between 2026 and about 2040, roughly half of them before 2035. The banks will not replace every departure, because automation and consolidation will reduce the number of positions in operations, back office and branch networks. They will, however, need to replace a large part of the relationship managers, compliance officers, credit specialists and portfolio managers. These are the functions in which experience counts most and in which the competition for staff with Zurich, Geneva and Milan is strongest.

The second face concerns knowledge. Many senior relationship managers in Lugano built their client books over decades with Italian families, often in the period before 2009 when the business rested on discretion and personal trust. Their departure is a moment of risk for the bank, since the clients may follow the person to a competitor or use the change as an occasion to move the assets to Milan. It is also a moment of risk for the client, because the history of an account, the reasons for a structure and the family context are often recorded only in the memory of the adviser. Chapter E.I has noted that the client relationships held by senior managers have become a succession problem for the banks, and Chapter E.III has shown the same problem for independent asset managers.⁷

Notes

1. USTAT, Scenari demografici 2024–2050 (above), medium scenario (2023: 357,720 inhabitants, 23.7 per cent aged 65+, 7.7 per cent aged 80+, 63.7 per cent aged 15–64, old-age dependency ratio 37.1; 2030: 365,240, 26.8, 9.0, 61.4, 43.6; 2040: 370,567, 31.0, 10.4, 57.2, 54.3; 2050: 370,016, 32.3, 14.2, 56.0, 57.7). For the persons aged 80 and over the publication states that "secondo lo scenario medio a fine 2050 ammonteranno a 52.490 individui, ovvero quasi il doppio rispetto al dato rilevato a fine 2023 (27.698)", which is consistent with the shares of 7.7 and 14.2 per cent. ↩
2. USTAT, presentation of the demographic scenarios, webinar of 21 May 2025, https://www3.ti.ch/DFE/DR/USTAT/allegati/multimedia/Webinar_Ustat_20250521.pdf (2050: high 400,018, medium 370,016, low 340,564; net migration 2,800, 2,200 and 1,600 a year). ↩
3. "Nel 2050 Ticino in aumento a 370mila abitanti, grazie solo al saldo migratorio", laRegione, 2 May 2025, https://www.laregione.ch/1834480. ↩
4. "Verso un Paese per vecchi", RSI, 2025, https://www.rsi.ch/info/ticino-grigioni-e-insubria/Verso-un-Paese-per-vecchi--2774494.html. ↩
5. "La Svizzera del 2055: saremo in 10,5 milioni e tanti anziani", tio.ch, 15 April 2025, https://www.tio.ch/svizzera/attualita/1830450/la-svizzera-del-2055-saremo-in-10-5-milioni-e-tanti-anziani, reporting the scenarios of the Federal Statistical Office. ↩
6. USTAT, 12 Denaro e banche (above) ("circa il 43% dei collaboratori bancari ha più di 50 anni"). ↩
7. See Chapters E.I and E.III. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.