Characteristics of employees

Workforce-related metrics are collected by the divisional HR teams and consolidated at Group level by Group HR. Group HR stipulates the uniform definitions to be applied, which are prescribed for the entire Swiss Life Group in the “Group HR Reporting & Analytics” directive.

As at 31 December 2025, 12 313 people had an employment contract with a Swiss Life Group company. This figure includes permanent and temporary employment contracts as well as non-guaranteed hours, full-time and part-time employees. Most of the metrics in this section are calculated on the basis of the total number of employees.

In its segment reporting, to ensure consistency with other external reporting, Swiss Life discloses the entity-specific metric “core workforce employees”, measured in full-time equivalents, instead of the total number of employees (see “Segment Reporting” section).

The gender distribution among employees is balanced. More than one third of employees work in Switzerland, with more than one quarter each in France and Germany.

The majority of Swiss Life employees have permanent, full-time contracts. Just under one fifth of employees take advantage of the option to work part-time. Fixed-term employment contracts are primarily used for employees in training (apprentices, interns and trainees). The aim is to offer these employees a permanent employment contract upon successful completion of their training. In rare cases, the Swiss Life Group divisions employ non-guaranteed hours employees.

The metric “core workforce employees” is a subset of employees, which does not include apprentices, interns, trainees and working students. Employees with long-term absences who draw social security benefits outside the Swiss Life Group are also excluded. The metric “core workforce employees” has been reported as “employees” in past reporting years.

The “core workforce employees” metric forms the basis for calculating the entity-specific metrics “new hires of core workforce employees by gender per segment”, “core workforce vacancies filled by internal candidates” and “average length of service of core workforce employees per segment in years”. All further metrics in this section are based on the total number of employees.

The turnover rate is the total number of employees who left during the reporting period divided by the average number of employees, in each case measured in headcount. In addition to departures and turnover across all employees, Swiss Life also reports these metrics for its core workforce employees. Swiss Life’s turnover rate was 16% during the reporting period. In terms of the core workforce, the turnover rate was lower at 13%. This is due to the fact that apprentices, interns, trainees and working students typically have temporary contracts and are not part of the core workforce.

Total number of employees by gender

Total number of employees by country

Employees by contract type

Turnover

Core workforce employees by country (entity-specific metric)

Full-time equivalents in the core workforce by country (entity-specific metric)

Newly hired core workforce employees by gender per segment (entity-specific metric)

Core workforce vacancies filled by internal candidates¹ (entity-specific metric)

Average length of service of core workforce employees per segment in years (entity-specific metric)

¹ The method for calculating internal job hires changed as of 2024.