Cleaning services: Nearly one in eight respondents do not clean their own home.
About one in eight of all Swiss respondents (12%) hires a cleaning service to clean their house. Just under half of all respondents (46%) have their home cleaned every two weeks and 42% have cleaning services clean their home once a week. In particular, those earning a good living, i.e. households with an income above CHF 10,000.-, and multi-person households are most likely to hire cleaning people to help keep their homes clean. These are the results of a survey that homegate.ch recently conducted on the housing situation in Switzerland.
The Swiss have turned household their cleaning duties over to skilled workers
In Switzerland, about one in eight people pays for a cleaning service (12%). Women tend to turn this kind of work over to a specialist more often,having a cleaning service clean their home once a week (46%).
But it turns out that men like their homes to be sparkling clean, too. However, they tend to hire cleaning personnel to come in just once every two weeks (47%). Ticinese are more likely (15%) to hire a cleaning service than Swiss Germans or Rhaeto-Romansh (12%).
Those earning higher incomes and childless households hire cleaning staff more often
Anyone who can afford it is happy to have somebody else clean their house for them. Of the 12% across Switzerland who employ cleaning services, it is those earning a good living, i.e., incomes of more than CHF 10,000.- (27%), and multi-person households (12.5%) who are most likely to employ cleaning services. It is interesting to note that an increasing number of multi-person households where there are no children present (14%) have cleaning services keep their homes clean.
Paying under the table to avoid filling out the paperwork and paying taxes
Household cleaning work that is paid under the table is widespread, but it is not a trivial offense. It is considered tax evasion. When asked about their reason for paying cleaning services under the table, the majority of respondents (78%) state that their desire to avoid filling out the paperwork and paying taxes is their main reason for paying to have household cleaning done under the table. The second-most cited reason (64%) for paying cleaning crews under the table is that clients are able to treat these cleaning people immorally, while trivializing the fact that they are violating the law. The third-most mentioned motive (48%) for paying cleaning staff under the table is to provide people who have no other legal means of earning a living with a job. Few believe that a client’s poor financial situation (28%) forces them to hire illegal cleaners.
Study Design
This representative study includes a systematic analysis of the housing situation of people living in Switzerland. 1,294 persons ranging in age from 18 to 74 were interviewed in German-, French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland.
About Homegate AG
Homegate AG was founded in 2001 and has since developed into the leading digital company in the Swiss real estate market. With more than 8.5 million visits per month and over 100,000 current real estate offers, homegate.ch is the number one Swiss real estate website. Homegate AG employs more than 100 people at its headquarters in Zurich and Lausanne. Homegate AG is part of the Swiss media Tamedia AG group; another shareholder is Zürcher Kantonalbank.
Media Contact
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Carina Schönenberger
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+41(0)44 711 86 80
carina.schoenenberger@homegate.ch