Swisscom opens a Lisbon site, and the union objects

Swisscom will open a new site in Lisbon. The announcement came during the presentation of the half-year results and immediately met opposition from Syndicom, the communications union.

The Portuguese site will join those already running in Riga and Rotterdam. It will provide technology and business services in IT and finance. Operations will begin in 2027 with around forty staff, set to grow to roughly two hundred over the medium term.

The company justifies the move as necessary to strengthen its competitiveness over the long term.

The union's objections

Syndicom considers the decision all the more questionable given that the group's accounts are in good health. In the union's view the move points to a mistaken order of priorities, because what is going abroad are high-value functions rather than marginal activities.

The union also raises an economic doubt. It asks whether short-term savings on salaries really offset the higher cost of coordinating between sites far apart from one another.

There remains the question of the company's role. Swisscom is a state-linked enterprise, which for Syndicom carries a particular responsibility towards the Swiss economy.

The market read the news the other way. The share gained more than 4% on the Zurich exchange. Since the start of the year the rise is 11%, the same as over twelve months, while over five years it stands at 18%.

The group emerged in 1997 from Telecom PTT and has been independent since 1998. It now employs 23,300 people and posted revenues of 15.0 billion francs in 2025. A substantial part of its business is in Italy, through Fastweb and Vodafone.

The gap between the investors' reaction and the employees' sums up the issue. A service centre abroad lowers fixed costs and improves expected margins, but it takes qualified jobs out of the Swiss labour market that had until now stayed in the country.