Finding a Job in Lausanne: The Complete Guide

Lausanne concentrates a significant share of employment in French-speaking Switzerland, but looking for work in a new city, or even in your own, remains disorienting. Where do you start? Which employers do you contact? Should you go through a platform, through the ORP, or send speculative applications?

This guide covers the question in practical terms: the state of the market, the sectors that are hiring, the channels to activate, and how to apply so that your file actually gets read. The goal: that you know exactly what to do once you have finished this article.

What does the Lausanne job market look like?

Let us start with the figures, because they set the tone. In June 2026, the district of Lausanne had an unemployment rate of 5.6%, slightly down on the previous month. At cantonal level, the rate was 4.7% in June 2026, with 19,917 people registered as unemployed at the end of the month.

Good news for candidates: demand is real. In June 2026, companies notified 3,037 vacancies to the Vaud ORPs, up 6.8% on the previous month. These notified roles are only a fraction of the market, since a large share of openings goes through private platforms and networks.

One methodological detail that helps when comparing: the canton of Vaud includes people who have exhausted their benefits in its statistics, which adds around 0.5 points to its rate compared with most other cantons. The market is therefore not tighter than elsewhere, it is simply counted more broadly.

Which sectors and employers are hiring in Lausanne?

Lausanne has a service economy, strongly oriented towards healthcare, the public sector and education. Healthcare, social and medico-social work alone accounts for more than one job in five in the region, and it is the fastest growing sector. The public sector represents around 25% of full-time jobs, the highest share among the five largest Swiss cities outside the federal capital.

In practice, a handful of employers structure the Lausanne market:

• The CHUV, one of Switzerland's five university hospitals, recruits continuously in care roles, but also in administration, logistics, IT and research.
• EPFL hosts some 14,000 students and employs more than 6,500 staff. Beyond academic posts, it recruits many technical and administrative profiles.
• UNIL, closely linked to the CHUV for medicine, is another major employment hub in the region.
• The City of Lausanne is a reference employer in French-speaking Switzerland, with regular openings across a broad range of professions.
• The IOC, whose Olympic House was inaugurated in 2019, employs around 600 people and makes Lausanne the Olympic capital, surrounded by an ecosystem of international sports federations.

Alongside these big names, the Lausanne fabric is made up of banks, insurers, retail, industrial companies (electronics, optics, graphic arts) and an active tourism sector along the shores of Lake Geneva. In other words, there is room for very varied profiles.

Where should you look for job openings?

There is no single right place, but a combination to activate in parallel. Here are the channels worth knowing.

Two points deserve emphasis. First, the ORP: anyone looking for, losing or leaving a job can register there. In Lausanne, it is located at Place Chauderon 9. Advisers support you in your search, and registration also conditions access to any benefits. Second, the speculative application: this is a recognised and well-regarded step in Switzerland. Targeting a specific employer, understanding its needs and contacting it directly can open doors before a role is even published.

How should you apply so that you are genuinely read?

Finding the posting is only half the journey. In French-speaking Switzerland, the form of the file counts as much as its content. A clear CV, in reverse chronological order, restrained and with nothing superfluous, plus a targeted cover letter: that is the expected baseline.

Three principles make the difference:

1. Adapt the file to each posting. A generic CV sent to twenty companies is less effective than a file adjusted to the role you are aiming for. Pick up the keywords from the advert, highlight the relevant experience, remove what is off topic.
2. Think about automated screening. Many employers, starting with the large Lausanne institutions, filter applications with software before any human sees them. A CV that is too dense or poorly structured struggles at this stage. To understand the mechanism, read our article on how ATS works.
3. Respect the conventions on length. In Switzerland, a CV fits on one to two pages, never more. If you are unsure, our guide on CV length in Switzerland sets the rule according to your profile.

That is precisely the work candidat.app does: starting from your real background, the tool generates a CV and cover letter adapted to each posting, calibrated to Swiss conventions and readable by screening software, without inventing anything about your profile. You stay in control, you save the formatting time, and you send a relevant file with every application.

In short

Finding a job in Lausanne means activating several channels at once: platforms such as jobup.ch and emplois-vaud.ch, registration with the ORP, the career pages of major employers, and speculative applications. The Vaud market is still hiring, with healthcare, the public sector, education and services leading the way. The employers that structure the region are the CHUV, EPFL, UNIL, the City of Lausanne and the IOC, surrounded by a fabric of banks, insurers, retail and industry. Once you have found the posting, everything comes down to the quality of the file: adapted to each role, restrained, the right length and readable by screening software.