Speaking to Schweiz am Wochenende, Gantner said it currently makes little difference to Partners Group whether a recruit comes from Bologna, Frankfurt or Paris to work in the firm's Zug office. Add a new cost on overseas hiring, he argued, and employers would lean more toward Swiss-based talent.
His idea targets EU recruits. Employers would pay an immigration tax of as much as 5% of the employee's salary, applied over five years, while lower wage levels would be charged from 1%. By his example, a company hiring at 81,000 Swiss francs a year - about $98,000 - would owe around 20,000 francs in total across that period.
Gantner and Partners Group's other founders created Kompass Europa, which campaigns against closer Swiss integration with the European Union. He argues the proceeds should be paid back to residents, telling the newspaper that steering funds to the lowest earners could amount to about 4,000 francs per year for a four-person family. He puts the potential annual take at roughly 1.35 billion francs.
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In plain English: this is a push to attach a hiring charge to bringing EU workers into Swiss roles and then send the proceeds back to households. Gantner's own math points to a multi-billion-franc flow over time and a policy debate that directly touches how Swiss employers source talent.
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