Recession notwithstanding, watchmaking is still an attractive career

Battered by the icy winds of recession, Swiss watchmakers are having to adapt. In a survival situation, this can mean draconian cost-cutting measures when employment is hard hit. Barely a week goes by without one watch company or another, including even the most prestigious names, announcing job cuts or, the lesser evil in the short term, reduced working hours. Have these gloomy prospects taken their toll on watchmaking as a desirable career for young people? Is it less of a lure, even when training helps boost the future of a profession that still relies on the craftsman’s hand? These are legitimate questions, although it seems there is at present no real cause for concern. As always, though, the situation isn’t entirely black and white.

No cancelled courses

“Interest in the different watchmaking professions hasn’t waned since the economy went into decline,” comments Lucien Bachelard, director of Ecole Technique de la Vallée de Joux, one of the capitals of Swiss watchmaking. Ninety new students have enrolled at the school, which is similar to last year’s intake. “Apprentices starting with us now will reach the job market in three years, by which time the situation will be back on track. And they know this.” Lucien Bachelard then goes on to note that firms in the region, which include Breguet, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet, have virtually doubled production over recent years. At some point over the coming years, all these watches will need servicing, which implies significant demand for qualified staff.

The same story can be heard at La Chaux-de-Fonds where Philippe Merz, director of the Centre Interrégional de Formation des Montagnes Neuchâteloises (CIFOM) reports only a slight decrease in the number of candidates for the centre’s entrance exams: just over 70 in 2009 compared with around a hundred the previous year, competing for 24 places on the basic study module. Taking all the modules together, 147 students are currently enrolled at CIFOM. According to André Mazzarini, training manager at the Centre Interrégional de Perfectionnement (CIP) in Tramelan, little has changed in a year. “We offer two courses for jobseekers wishing to reintegrate the workforce. They lead to a qualification as an operator with assembly and casing specialities. Both courses started up in April and in September as usual.” There is just one sour note: after enrolling a hundred or so students for its basic training module in 2007 and 2008, numbers fell to around 30 this year. The CIP provides modular training for adults that leads to a certificat fédéral de capacité as a watchmaker. This puts the centre in a different position to schools whose students are apprentices. Still, not one of the training centres or schools contacted between Geneva and Granges, where Swiss watchmaking is concentrated, has been obliged to cancel courses.

Graduates in waiting

What about next year? “Enrolments have just started and will continue until March 2010, so it’s still too early to say,” comments Jean-Marc Matthey, who heads the Watchmaking department at the Centre de Formation Professionnelle in Biel. Figures for the branch as a whole aren’t yet available for 2009. Taking last year’s figures instead, the number of new apprenticeship contracts grew 4.5%, increasing from 383 in 2007 to 401 in 2008. The situation remains relatively stable at the other end of the study scale, with 206 students passing their certificat fédéral de capacité in 2008 compared with 216 the previous year, according to latest figures from the Convention Patronale de l’Industrie Horlogère (CPIH) which represents employers in the Swiss watchmaking sector.

Recession, so it seems, hasn’t dented interest in watchmaking and its different professions. However, the situation for the newly-qualified apprentices joining the workforce in 2009 isn’t as rosy as in previous years. Less than a third of the fifteen graduates of Ecole Technique de la Vallée de Joux have found employment. The others are prolonging their studies or are studying a language abroad. “As though they were in some kind of stacking lane,” comments Lucien Bachelard, when not so long ago brands were falling over themselves to woo students fresh from school.

A return to growth?

Not that the future is lacking in opportunity. The Ecole Technique is building a new wing in La Vallée de Joux to house two workshops and a classroom, financed by a public/private partnership. It will be ready for classes starting in autumn 2010. Over in Biel, Jean-Marc Matthey is delighted to announce “the opening next year of a new class for the two-year course.” Two indications that watchmaking is expecting a return to growth any day soon. In Tramelan, André Mazzarini is a little more cautious: “It’s hard to predict where the market will settle, after the excesses of recent years, and what this will entail in terms of jobs.” Daniel Wegmüller, the principal of ZeitZentrum Uhrmacherschule in Granges, is of a similar view: “We can expect a small drop in the number of students in the medium term.”

A number of economists share the opinion that watchmaking’s solid foundations will take it through these difficult times and see it emerge stronger. As Philippe Merz, director of CIFOM, reminds us, the CPIH’s 2008 survey on the need to train new professionals is no less relevant today, even if recession means these needs are not quite so pressing. Part ironic, part cynical, he concludes: “I’ll leave it to the real economists to make forecasts. They’re better than I am at getting it wrong.”