is it hard to find a job in Switzerland for me?

Visas, Permits, Passports and Naturalization
1
Well, I am a Chinese woman, and my education degree is only junior school,my bf is a swiss guy and we are going to get married soon, i wanted to ask is it possible for me to get a job like shop guider in a cloth shop or cosmetics shop? or a waitress in a restaurant or a representative in a small inn/motel? I can speak Chinese Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, English, And i am learning German right now,please help me, i need your answer or advice

2
You will most likely only find a job after you get married as it is very difficult to hire foreigners in Switzerland - especially since you are not highly educated.

Can you find a job after you are married and have a work permit? Sure. The unemployment rate is low and if you are motivated to learn will there be tons of service jobs. There are a lot of jobs most Swiss are not willing to do - like being a waitress, so they need to find willing immigrants but have a hard time doing so based on the work permit regulations. You will not get rich... but the pay is way better than in most other countries even if you calculate the high costs in.

Your exact chances depend a bit on yourself: Learning English and the local language, either French or German is very important. If you frankly know how to present yourself: there are more and more Chinese tourists coming to China and I have seen that every major jewellery and designer shop in Zurich had several Chinese speaking shop assistants to meet the demand. If you have the looks, dress and attitude for retail is luxury shops probably something to check out. Same is true for tour companies and most major tourist spots. Since they cannot easily hire people from China will your work permit be your major advantage.

3
thank you very much for your reply, Sir. May I ask how much the salary of a restaurant waitress will be in the Germany-speaking area of Swiss? is it difficult to get a job as a sales of cloth shop or cosmetics shop? is there any possible way to improve my education degree in swiss since i am an adult woman already.

And yes, we will get married first, the job thing will be our next step.

4
Money: no idea, most likely varies heavily depending on your experience.

Diffculty to find a retail job: I cannot imagine anyone selling anything without speaking the local language. If you do not, probably very difficult.

Education: Plenty of options, many cost money. One thing your husband should help you with - as soon as you live here and are married register with the local government agency supporting jobseeker (well, "controlling job seeker" is more the truth..). They pay money to people who lost their job but also have some education options. You will not get money if you have not worked in Switzerland or Europe before, but they might get you a free German course!

5
being an adult does not prevent you from attending courses (university or other) and access further education opportunities such as apprenticeships etc. but many of your peers might be younger, but don't let that worry you.

at a guess, being a waitress probably pays around CHF 3000-3500 according to this website http://www.lohnrechner.ch , sorry german, french and italian only. but it probably depends a lot where in switzerland you work and what kind of food outlet/restaurant etc. you work at.

good luck and all the best for you and your partner!

6
Once you're married you will get a permit and are at least allowed to work.

However, with this background and no skills of the local language, it is very difficult to find employment, whether it's in a restaurant, in a shop, a hotel or a cosmetics institute. At least basic German skills are required for any job in any of these industries as your customers and colleagues would be predominantly German speakers no matter what. So the more German you speak, the better. Sure there might be the odd exception and you might get lucky and find something that doesn't require German, but such opportunities are very rare, so be prepared to search for a long time. Focus on learning German, this should be your number one priority.

You might want to consider the option of tutoring/teaching Chinese at some point.

7
I think the advice at looking at the tourism industry is good. There are literally coach loads of wealthy tourists from China and other asian countries visiting Switzerland. If you are living near anywhere touristy like Interlaken, or Luzern (i also see hundreds visitiing Engelbegr even when the place is busy with skiers) you might be able to get job where these tourists frequent, ie wrist watch shops!

Or maybe try the tour companies themselves.

More and more people want to learn Chinese and Japanese these days, do you have any qualifications for teaching these as a foreign language? This might be a quick way to get qualified for a good job. You could get a job in one of the many language schools. I don't think a lack of german skills will necessarily be a problem to work in a language school.

8
You don't say what work experience you do already have? With only knowing that you have a basic education and no local language abilities, I'm guessing a chinese restaurant would be a good temporary solution that would allow you to speak chinese, english, and very basic german. You can then if you wish study in your spare tim to improve German and education.

9
Why not just ask "How's your cooking?"

10
In order to be a successful tour guide, you need to be able to communicate on both sides of the equasion to have any use to your "wealthy tourists".....

11
You are probably right. But some employers might not see it that way if they really want people who speak Mandarin and/or Japanese - the english might make up for the lack of German. Worth a try I would say.

12
Yes, but if people are weathly thay are usualy quite happy to pay, but in return they want value for money, which means being able to properly communicate. With no French or German, that will be diffcult and the weathly clients get pissed off as they have paid for something yet don't recieve what they paid for.....

13
The problem with working in any of the service industries is that customers ask for things in their Swiss dialect, so having high German is not much use as one will not understand what the customer is asking for.

Seasonal farm work (picking fruit/grapes/etc) is available, and domestic cleaning work, for those not proficient enough in Swiss or High German.

14
my work was an international sales, my main job was to devolop new european or american clients and follow their orders till the order has delivered, and after that i need to handle if any goods are returned from my clients.

and i forgot to say that we will go back to switzerland in one year, so i still have one year to focus on my grrman learning, so i think the language wont be such a big problem for me!