Happy International Women’s Day! The theme this year is #breakthebias and you can find out more here. Lucerne will be celebrating by holding talks & workshops from 16.00 onwards at the Vögeligarten square.
Due to the conflict in Ukraine, the Swiss Franc and the Euro are worth the same. This affects the economy, because when foreigners are getting less for their money they think twice about coming to Switzerland. The National Bank will try to make sure that the Franc doesn’t get any stronger or the export industry could also be affected.
Meanwhile unemployment numbers continue to go down. The national trend currently stands at 2.5%, and it is forecast to go down to 2% this summer. The gastronomy industry is still suffering a shortage of staff. Meanwhile the government has decided to make it easier for certain industry branches to hire non EU/EFTA citizens to help deal with the staff shortage.
The Lucerne government is always on the lookout for ways to make the city greener; one way is by making it harder for car owners to get around or find parking spaces downtown. A new building project in the Industriestrasse is planning to have only 3 parking spaces available for 51 apartments. Now a concept developped in Barcelona whereby whole areas are declared to be superblocks and the streets turned over to the inhabitants to grill, chill and play is being looked into for downtown Lucerne.
A 25 year old man called the police last Thursday from his cellar in an apartment block in Oberwil, because he was feeling threatened. When the police arrived, they didn’t find anyone threatening the man but rather that he was in a full psychosis episode brought on by inhaling the fumes of the 120 cannabis plants he was growing illegally in his cellar. The man was handed over to a psychiatric centre and also charged with illegally growing cannabis.
