The Multiple-Employer Trap 2026

Occupational pensions are the 2nd pillar of Switzerland's three-pillar system — alongside the AHV (1st pillar) and private provision (3rd pillar). Together with the AHV, they are meant to maintain a person's accustomed standard of living in old age. But they only kick in above an income threshold: anyone who earns less than CHF 22'680 a year from one employer in 2026 is not compulsorily insured. The crucial phrase is from one employer: the threshold is assessed per job, not on combined total income.

A worked example makes the mechanism tangible. A cleaner works for four households and earns CHF 6'000 a year from each — CHF 24'000 in total. Above the threshold, you might think. But because each individual job sits at CHF 6'000, far below the CHF 22'680, none of them is subject to the BVG. The result: a full income but zero occupational pension. The same income from one employer would be above the threshold — and would be insured.

Politicians are aware of the problem. The BVG reform (BVG-21) proposed, among other things, lowering the entry threshold from CHF 22'680 to CHF 19'845 — explicitly to bring more low-wage, part-time and multiple-job workers into the 2nd pillar. On 22 September 2024, voters rejected the bill with 67.1% No (only around 32% Yes) — one of the clearest results of a federal referendum since 2010.

There is no verdict to pass here on the Yes or No — the bill covered far more than just this threshold, and voters have decided. What matters is a factual reading for the multiple-employer case: even the lower threshold of CHF 19'845 would not have fully solved the problem described here. Because each individual CHF 6'000 job would still fall below it. As long as the threshold applies per employer and not on total income, splitting work across many small jobs remains the real structural hurdle — regardless of exactly where the threshold is drawn.

The structural threshold cannot be shifted overnight at the legislative level. On a practical level, though, there is one lever: transparency over total income. Clino aggregates a domestic helper's wages across all employers and flags when the combined total reaches the BVG threshold — so that voluntary pension cover can at least be considered. What today stays invisible across four separate payslips becomes visible this way.

At the same time, a payroll platform tackles the problem at its root: it makes even the smallest job easy to register. That is exactly where many households fail today — everyone thinks «this is too little, it is not worth it», and the job stays informal. As a result the cleaner falls out not only of the 2nd pillar but often of the AHV and accident insurance too. A low-barrier registration links the two: it brings small jobs out of undeclared work and makes the pension gap addressable in the first place.