Swiss Militia Facing Shortage Of Recruits

According to the 2025 army census published on Thursday, early departures are making work in the refresher courses more difficult. Positions in advanced training services cannot be adequately filled. The resulting difficulties in training would reduce the standard of training and readiness in the medium term.

+ How Switzerland's militia system impacts civic identity

Around 140,000 deployed members of the armed militia forces – the effective number – are needed to ensure the 99,101 positions required for mission fulfilment – the so-called target number. This takes into account the fact that not all of those deployed will be able to fulfil the order.

Since the implementation of the Further Development of the Armed Forces (WEA), members of the armed forces remain deployed for ten years. However, deployments for 12 years are intended to secure personnel levels during a transitional period. For these transitional cohorts, compulsory service ends in 2028 and 2029.

Together with over 11,000 early departures per year, this means that the effective number of personnel is expected to fall to 125,000 in 2029. More than half of those who leave the army prematurely will switch to civilian service.

Of the 30-year-olds in a recruitment year, a good third (35%) are doing military service, 14% are assigned to civic duty and 13% to civil defence. The final third (37%) do not serve for medical or other reasons.

On March 1, 2025, the army had 146,718 members assigned to formations, according to a statement issued on Thursday. This was 256 fewer than in 2024. 1.7% of them were women. Some 105,997 of the conscripts have to perform training services. The remaining 40,721 have fulfilled this obligation.

Parliament wants to make it more difficult to switch from the army to civilian service. In the autumn session, it decided on higher hurdles for this. The people may also be able to express their opinion on this. Associations, civil society organisations and companies want to fight the changes to the Civilian Service Act with a referendum.

This content was published on Nov 7, 2025 On November 30, the Swiss will vote on an initiative to reform military service. The idea is to introduce compulsory civic service for all Swiss nationals residing in the country. Swissinfo explains what is at stake.