Expat and pregnancy

Visas, Permits, Passports and Naturalization
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Good day everyone from the English Forum Switzerland, thanks for having me here.

I am a 30-year old Costa Rican and Italian female that have been with my current employer (multinational) since 2015, having started in Costa Rica in a permanent contract. Beginning last year, I was offered and accepted an international assignment in Switzerland with my employer, with a fixed term until August/2023.

I have moved to Switzerland with my husband (also EU citizen), he found a cool job here, we adapted pretty well and we are now interested in staying permanently in Switzerland. I have initiated conversations with my company about being localized, but they were pretty clear that they will not extend/localize me, and would like me to return to my home country (Costa Rica) at the end of my assignment.

I have around 1 year left in Switzerland under my current good expat contract. On top of this, my husband and I have decided on trying to have our first child in the coming months. In the middle of so many uncertainties, I have a few questions and would love to get some advice:

1. Considering my employer will not extend my fixed term assignment in Switzerland. If I inform them of my pregnancy before the assignment ends, could this potentially change things (motivate them to at least extend my contract until the end of the maternity leave)? Or the fact that I am in Switzerland under a fixed term expat assignment, refusing to come back to my home base, indicate as if I was resigning myself (abdicating from any benefit)?

2. I am also concerned that, after pregnancy, I would potentially get out of my maternity leave without a job. Would I be entitled to receive some social benefit support until I could find a job? Please note that I have been regularly paying all my social contributions since I arrived and started working in Switzerland.

Thanks for you help,

PB

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2) You will receive unemployment benefit (not social) for up to ~2 years. During this time you are employed by the unemployment bureau and your job is to find your next job. You will be paid 80% of your previous salary. (There's an upper limit of around 140K).

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  1. From a legal point of view is your employment with a Swiss company or with your company back home and is it an opened or fixed contract.

  2. https://www.moneyland.ch/en/swiss-un…nsurance-guide

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My contract is with the home base company, open ended, while my assignment letter in Switzerland has a fixed term until next year. It is a bit confusing...

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I would say that they are pretty clear about the duration and scope of your assignment to CH and a refusal to return would qualify to some sort of contract violation (not necessarily equivalent to resigning but...).

However you should check your contract and the law of Costa Rica for the details.

In the best case scenario, they extend your stay in Switzerland since for them it does not matter where you are due to maternity leave, but afterwards you'll have to come back.

In the most likely scenario, they ask you to do your pregnancy in Costa Rica or at least to come back in August 2023 (I assume they have some extra costs from you being here).

As an EU citizen you have the right to live and work in CH, with some conditions. It's probably better if you use these 12 months to find a job in CH and quit the previous job as soon as you can.

Maternity is usually well tolerated in CH, well, at least is seems better than other countries I know... however I would expect some difficulties if you exactly overlap the job search with your maternity period. Maybe you could postpone it a little? I understand it is a delicate and personal topic, sorry if I overstep.

This should be not so common, unless it's your decision. However if you return to work you have to respect the contract, you can't say "now I have a child and I want to work only 40%, please change my contract" - they are not obliged to do that. Some companies will offer is, some might refuse even when asked.

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Companies that manage true expats (i.e. contract in home country and assignment letter in host) well typically also have a policy that deals with maternity and maternity leave during assignment. Does yours have this?

The Swiss legal entity will have no obligation to employee you and many companies are very strict with these policies since they aim to send employees to headquarter and back with knowledge and do not let employees stay on.

What is your social security status? Depending how the company set you up in CH you may or not be paying social insurance here - this is something you need to investigate before assuming you will have unemployment.

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Thanks for this and please don’t feel like overstepping. I am certainly trying to balance the fact that I want to stay in Switzerland / my company doesn’t want me to stay post 2023 / I would like to have my first child. I have been trying to wonder what is the best strategy to avoid impacting my career so much, so indeed waiting a bit until I have another job here could also help. But at the same time, I will then need to wait until the probation is over, that I am adapted to the new job etc. Feels like it will take a long time to be the right time.

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Correct, that is my case. However their international assignment guide does not provide clear indication for cases when the expat itself gets pregnant, but rather the partner (which seems very odd considering the size of the company). I have been through all of it and couldn’t find anything, only general sentences saying that the home base laws would apply.

I am paying the whole thing here... documentation and payment wise, I pay and have the very same thing as my husband on a local contract in Switzerland.

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Ahh, this is the answer you are looking for. Your company’s policy for expats is that the regulations of the home country/company will apply to you. You need to obtain the employment manual for your ’home base’, in your case the policies for Costa Rica, which apply to your expat stay in Switzerland, to know the details to guide your decision making.

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Thanks all for your support. So, what I am taking from what has been said so far is:

1) Regardless of being pregnant or not, my current employer can ask me anytime (or in August 2023, when my expat contract ends) to go back to Costa Rica since my open-ended employment contract is there. If I don’t want to come back and refuse their offer to go back to Costa Rica, it will mean that I am resigning and they would have no obligation around anything from that point onwards.

2) This being said, it means that I would probably be unemployed during my future pregnancy. Anyone could please give me some advice around:

- I would need to change my current international company health insurance to a Swiss insurance in the middle of the pregnancy. Could I have issues or have to pay huge amounts because I am already pregnant?

- How is Swiss job market for early 30s mom that have just came back from maternity leave and is looking for a job? I am really afraid of jeopardizing my career too much.

2) Since I have paid social insurance for all this time as expat here in Switzerland, I will be entitled to unemployment benefit until I can find a job here. Since my current salary is composed of a low base salary but with many extras (around 50% of the total: housing support,, tax equalization benefit etc.), would anyone know if the unemployment benefit would be calculated over only the base salary or it would consider the net amount that I receive monthly by my company?

Thanks for all the help!

PB

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Are you legally married and are your permits tied together in some way (what is your permit, what is his ?).

Can you afford to live for 1-2 years on your husband's salary with zero income from you so that you can stay home and look after the baby/child ?

Do you think you will struggle to find work that is flexible and well-paid in Switzerland or are you quite highly employable ?

eg. do you have qualifications that are recognised ?

do you have language skills in at least one of the local languages for the area of Switzerland where you live ?

Is your job/qualifications in demand ?

Is it the sort of work where you can get a flexible job.

OR

does your husband's salary mean you can afford childcare, regardless of how low your salary is, in order to keep you on a career path ?

Do you plan to have more than one child (what if it's twins? what if the baby is born sick or unwell?).

Is your biological clock ticking ? Are you over 30 ?

In making a very 'rational' decision about kids - these are the things you may want to think about more deeply.

Also, personally I think:

- you will never be 'ready' for having a child

- you will never have 'enough money' to have a child.

- what works in the first 6 months or year after having a baby,w ill change every year, even twice a year....it's not a 'one size fits all' plan, that's for sure....

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- We are both at B permits. Our permits are not tied together at all (one not depending on the other at current moment).

- Yes, we are currently in a comfortable financial situation. We would not be able to live only with his salary considering the one child now, but our savings would well support it for 1-2 years without any major concern. In this case, coming back to the same seniority I am currently at (mid-senior manager) after the 1-2 years would be my concern.

- I am quite employable today, have been to final stage of interviews 3 times in the last 3 months - and almost got it on the three cases. Considering the seniority I am looking for, I think this is fairly okay. I do have qualification and language is not really a concern in my field (doesn’t necessarily need a local language as long the qualifications support it).

- Biological clock not a big concern for next 2/3 years, but I do feel like this is the right time (just a feeling, desire to be a mom, I don’t know...). I will wait for the first child to decide if more will come, hehe.