Work and Gender
Migros employs tens of thousands of women and mothers. Without the work of women, the company could hardly be imagined in its current form. Full-time employment, many years of service with the company and a high level of professional experience are not male domains at Migros. This is leading to an increasing level of real equality at Migros.
Gender structure
In 2011 Migros Group employed 53 216 women and 33 177 men; the proportion of women stood at about 61%. In Switzerland's economic average, the female employment rate stands at about 45%. In the three business areas of Cooperative Retailing, Commerce and Travel, which employ about 84% of Migros' entire workforce, the proportion of women stands at between 65 and 74%, i.e. a lot higher. As such, Migros makes an important contribution to the employment of women in Switzerland. The necessary compatibility of job and family is supported with a broad range of family-policy measures and benefits. Migros is committed to a future-looking HR policy because it is aware that increasing the percentage of women in the workforce plays a key role in mastering the future economic and demographic challenges.
Chart Gender structure
Employment structure
Employment level
Full-time and part-time employment go hand in hand at Migros. Contrary to the trend in the Swiss labour market, which is dominated by the fall in full-time and an increase in part-time employment, full-time and part-time employment remained stable at Migros.
Chart Employment level
Employment level
Full- and part-time employment by gender
Throughout Switzerland, the proportion of women amongst full-time employees remained flat at slightly below 30%. This proportion stands at about 42% at Migros. Part-time employment nevertheless remains an important factor for the employment of women and the compatibility of work and family. The above-average increase in the employment rate of women with children under the age of 15 at Migros clearly underlines this aspect.
Chart Full- and part-time employment by gender
Part-time employment rate
Part-time employment is also the activity level of choice for women in particular at Migros. But while only every tenth man in Switzerland is employed part-time, the part-time employment level amongst men across all age groups was 21.2% at Migros in 2011, thereby making it double that of the rest of the Swiss labour market.
Chart Part-time employment rate
Age structure
Distribution by age groups
The development until the end of 2011 shows that a balanced age structure actually exists at Migros: the age of about each half of the workforce is below or above the average age of 39.6 years. This age structure promotes and supports cooperation across generations, which is an important part of the corporate culture.
Chart Distribution by gender
Distribution by age groups
Comparative age structure
The percentage of male and female employees per age group is virtually identical. The fact that the proportion of women is even slightly higher in the age group from 15 to 40 years shows that women no longer have to decide between career and family when promoted in a targeted manner, but can combine both areas well with one another.
Chart Comparative age structure
Percentage per length of service group by gender (Chart)
The employees are loyal to Migros. Some 60% of men and 58% of women have worked at Migros for more than five years, with men staying with the company for a shorter period of time: while some 45% of women can be found in the two groups of a medium length of service (6 to 9 years and 10 to 20 years), the proportion of men stands at 40%. With these figures, Migros clearly sets itself apart from the Swiss average, where only 53.5% of employees have been with the same employer for more than five years and male employees stay with their employer for longer than women do (56.2 compared to 50.2%).
Percentage within length of service group by gender (Chart)
Migros employs some 30 000 women with children. The above-average proportion of women in the workforce, both per group of years of service (reference basis: totality of women) and within the groups of years of service (reference basis: totality of all employees), shows that women are not forced to interrupt their career to bring up children as a rule. For this reason, women at Migros often have more work experience as opposed to less. These factors ultimately result in more equality in working life and rule out employment-history wage differences.