Seco Labor Mcp

🇨🇭 Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio

SECO Labor Market MCP Server

🌐 English | Deutsch

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for Swiss labor market data from SECO (Staatssekretariat für Wirtschaft) and AMSTAT via opendata.swiss.

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Overview

This server connects AI models to Swiss labor market statistics — unemployment rates, job seekers, open positions, youth unemployment, and occupational breakdowns — all without requiring an API key.

Primary audiences:

• 🏫 Schulamt / Education planning — youth unemployment, vocational guidance data
• 📊 Research & analysis — labor market trends, cantonal comparisons
• 🤖 AI agents — automated labor market monitoring and reporting

Anchor query:
"Welche Berufsgruppen haben im Kanton Zürich die höchste Jugendarbeitslosigkeit, und welche Lehrberufe unterliegen der Stellenmeldepflicht?" → More use cases by audience →

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Data Sources (Phase 1 — No Auth Required)

Source	Description	Status
opendata.swiss	CKAN catalogue; the pinned BFS table T3.3.0.1 carries the SECO annual series	✅ Live
arbeit.swiss	Monthly press reports (PDF, structured URL pattern)	✅ Live
amstat.ch	AMSTAT reference portal	⚠️ JavaScript SPA, no public REST API
unfallstatistik.ch	Unfallstatistik UVG (SSUV/KSUV c/o Suva) — occupational accidents and diseases	⚠️ PDF only, no API (see below)

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Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  seco-labor-mcp                     │
│                                                     │
│  ┌─────────────┐    ┌──────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  FastMCP    │    │      9 MCP Tools         │   │
│  │  Server     │◄──►│  seco_search_datasets    │   │
│  │  (stdio /   │    │  seco_get_dataset        │   │
│  │   HTTP)     │    │  seco_get_unemployment_* │   │
│  └─────────────┘    │  seco_get_youth_*        │   │
│         │           │  seco_get_job_seekers    │   │
│         ▼           │  seco_get_open_positions │   │
│  ┌─────────────┐    │  seco_get_monthly_url    │   │
│  │  httpx      │    │  seco_list_cantons       │   │
│  │  async      │    └──────────────────────────┘   │
│  └──────┬──────┘                                   │
└─────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────┘
          │
          ▼
  ┌───────────────────────────────────┐
  │  opendata.swiss CKAN API          │
  │  https://opendata.swiss/api/3/    │
  │  action/package_search            │
  │  action/package_show              │
  └───────────┬───────────────────────┘
              │
              ▼
  ┌───────────────────────────────────┐
  │  SECO Data Resources              │
  │  CSV / XLSX / PDF Downloads       │
  │  (monthly labor market data)      │
  └───────────────────────────────────┘

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Where the figures come from — and what is missing

SECO is no longer a publisher on opendata.swiss. Verified 2026-08-14: organization_show returns 404, and none of the 176 entries in organization_list is SECO. Until then the server filtered every search on that organisation and therefore returned nothing — a name lookup that misses looks exactly like an empty search.

The registered unemployed and job seekers are still SECO's figures: the BFS publishes them in table T3.3.0.1 and names SECO in the footer. The server reads that table through a pinned dataset id (sources.py), checked against the live source by a live test.

Series	2000	2025
Registered job seekers (SECO)	124.6	214.1
Registered unemployed (SECO)	72.0	133.7
ILO unemployed (BFS)	126.5	248.5

thousands, annual average

The three series do not measure the same thing: in 2000 the ILO figure is 1.76× the registered one. The server reports them separately and labelled, and never converts one into the other.

The cantonal layer: four cantons, four schemas

There is no national monthly series — but four cantons publish their own RAV figures, each in its own portal with its own column names. For those, seco_get_unemployment_overview(canton=…) returns real values:

Canton	Granularity	from	Level	Note
TG	monthly	2016-01	canton	only series by age class → youth unemployment as a count
FR	monthly	2004-01	canton and Switzerland	carries the national monthly figure as a comparison row
ZG	monthly	1993-01	canton	youth unemployment only as a rate, not a count
ZH	annual	1991	municipality	no monthly values; districts and regions sit in the same column as municipalities and are separated out

The other 22 cantons get a named refusal — no figure from another canton and no national aggregate. Partial coverage that feels complete is worse than none.

The four series are not comparable with each other and do not add up to a Swiss figure: different time axes, different geographic levels, and in ZG's case a rate rather than a count.

Still not available: unemployment by occupational group, open positions as a national series, and youth unemployment for Switzerland or for 24 of the 26 cantons. The affected tools say so and return no substitute figure. These values exist interactively on amstat.ch, which offers no interface a server could call.

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Tools

Tool	Description	Key Use Case
seco_search_datasets	Search labour-market datasets on opendata.swiss (publisher shown per hit)	Discovery
seco_get_dataset	Full metadata + download links for a dataset	Data access
seco_get_unemployment_overview	Registered unemployed: national annual, cantonal for TG/FR/ZG/ZH	Labor market overview
seco_get_youth_unemployment	Youth unemployment (15–24) — TG (count) and ZG (rate) only	🎓 Berufswahlberatung
seco_get_job_seekers	Registered job seekers, national, annual series from 2000	Training demand
seco_get_open_positions	Open positions — no national series available	Sector analysis
seco_get_unemployment_by_occupation	Breakdown by Berufshauptgruppe — no machine-readable source	🎓 Vocational guidance
seco_get_monthly_report_url	Generate/verify PDF report URL	Source access
seco_list_cantons	All 26 canton codes and names	Utility
seco_get_uvg_overview	UVG key figures on occupational accidents and diseases	Risk overview
seco_get_uvg_by_branch	Results per NOGA 2008 economic branch	🎓 Vocational guidance
seco_get_uvg_trends	Ten-year accident time series per branch	Trend analysis

12 of a maximum of 15 tools.

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Unfallstatistik UVG (SSUV)

The three seco_get_uvg_* tools cover the risk side of the same labour market the unemployment tools describe: how many occupational accidents and diseases occur per branch, and how that develops over ten years.

The publisher is not SECO. The Unfallstatistik UVG is issued by the Koordinationsgruppe KSUV and the Sammelstelle SSUV c/o Suva, Lucerne. The seco_ prefix addresses this server, not the source; every response names the actual publisher in its source field.

Architecture decision: C (dump-first)

Verified live on 2026-08-05, full write-up in PROBE_REPORT_UVG.md.

The source has no API. A link scan across every data page returned 165 PDFs and zero files with .csv, .xlsx or .json. opendata.swiss does not list the source at all (count=0 for six of seven search terms), and the BFS dam-api silently ignores its filter parameters. What remains is machine-readable in practice but not by design:

Access	Format	Refresh
schluesselzahlen_d.htm	HTML table, 5 years, Switzerland-wide	annually
Ts{YY}.pdf	annual edition, tables 1.2 and 2.4 by NOGA	annually, June
WirtKl_{BUV|NBUV}_{NN}.pdf	ten-year series per NOGA division	annually, January

PDFs are cached for 24 h and fetched with 2s/4s/8s backoff.

What every response tells you

• source_freshness.data_year — the data year, not the edition year. The 2026 edition reports 2024; that two-year lag is stated, not buried.
• totals_check — parsed rows are summed and compared against the total printed in the same publication. A broken layout shows up here instead of becoming a plausible wrong number.
• significant — the source marks statistically significant year-on-year changes with an asterisk. That flag is preserved per data point, so a change is only reported as significant where the source says so.

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Installation

Claude Desktop (stdio)

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "seco-labor": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["seco-labor-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cloud / HTTP

pip install seco-labor-mcp
MCP_TRANSPORT=http PORT=8000 seco-labor-mcp

http is the transport to use. It is the only one that can carry the modern protocol era: measured against this server object, http negotiates 2026-07-28 while sse caps every client at 2025-11-25, even a client that offers the modern era. sse and streamable-http remain accepted for existing deployments — tests/test_transport_aera.py runs both and records which era each one actually yields.

The HTTP server binds to 127.0.0.1 (loopback) by default to prevent NeighborJack on shared networks. For container deployments where you actually need to accept traffic from outside the container, set HOST=0.0.0.0 explicitly — ideally in your Dockerfile / orchestrator config, and only behind an upstream proxy or firewall:

HOST=0.0.0.0 MCP_TRANSPORT=http PORT=8000 seco-labor-mcp   # container only

An unknown MCP_TRANSPORT value now exits with an error. It used to fall back to stdio silently, so a typo produced a server that simply never appeared on the expected port.

Development

git clone https://github.com/malkreide/seco-labor-mcp.git
cd seco-labor-mcp
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest tests/ -m "not live" -v

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Usage Examples

Search for youth unemployment data

Tool: seco_search_datasets
Input: { "query": "Jugendarbeitslosigkeit Alter", "limit": 5 }

Get cantonal unemployment for Zürich

Tool: seco_get_unemployment_overview
Input: { "canton": "ZH", "response_format": "markdown" }

Get monthly report URL

Tool: seco_get_monthly_report_url
Input: { "year": 2026, "month": 2, "language": "de" }

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Key Concepts

Arbeitslose vs. Stellensuchende

Eselsbrücke: Arbeitslose ⊂ Stellensuchende — Arbeitslose sind eine Teilmenge.

Term	Definition	Dec 2025
Arbeitslose	RAV-registered, immediately available	~149'000 (3.2%)
Stellensuchende	All RAV-registered (incl. training programs)	~233'900

Youth Unemployment Seasonality

• July/August: Sharp increase (school leavers without placements)
• September/October: Decline (apprenticeship starts)
• The residual that remains after the autumn decline signals structural need for bridge programs (Brückenangebote)

Stellenmeldepflicht (since 2020)

Occupations with ≥5% unemployment rate must be reported to the RAV before posting publicly. The list changes annually. This is directly relevant for vocational counseling — these professions have highest availability for Swiss job seekers.

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Portfolio Synergies

Server	Synergy
swiss-statistics-mcp	BFS population/employment data for deeper context
zurich-opendata-mcp	City of Zurich-level education and social data
swiss-snb-mcp	Economic context (GDP, wages) for labor market interpretation
fedlex-mcp	ALV (Arbeitslosenversicherung) legislative framework

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Known Limitations

• amstat.arbeit.swiss has no public REST API (JavaScript SPA) → workaround via CKAN
• Occupational/sectoral detail requires CSV download from SECO resources
• Monthly press report URL patterns may vary for older reports
• Cantonal sub-municipal data not available at this level
• UVG figures come from PDF parsing — the layout was stable across the 2025 and 2026 editions, but a redesign can break it. The totals_check in every response is what makes such a break visible rather than silent.
• UVG data lags roughly two years (the 2026 edition reports 2024)
• UVG branch detail follows NOGA 2008 and groups some divisions (41 – 42, 77, 79 – 82); there is no cantonal breakdown at this level
• Detailed UVG data beyond the publications sits behind the SSUV closed user group and is out of scope for this no-auth server

Phase 2 roadmap:

• Automatic CSV caching with 24h TTL
• Direct XLSX parsing for cantonal breakdowns
• Integration with zh-education-mcp for Schulamt-specific correlations

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Data License

Two different licences apply — the code of this server is MIT either way, but the data is not covered by it.

SECO / AMSTAT data published on opendata.swiss is under Creative Commons CCZero (public domain). Source: Staatssekretariat für Wirtschaft (SECO) — seco.admin.ch

Unfallstatistik UVG data is not openly licensed. The publication states:

«Abdruck – ausser für kommerzielle Nutzung – mit Quellenangabe gestattet.» (Reproduction permitted, except for commercial use, with attribution.)

That is a non-commercial restriction with an attribution requirement. It belongs to KSUV/SSUV and cannot be lifted by this repository's MIT licence: the MIT terms cover the code, not the figures the code retrieves. If you use this server commercially, the UVG tools are not covered — clarify directly with the Sammelstelle (unfallstatistik@suva.ch). Every UVG response repeats this restriction in its source field, because a README is not passed to the model.

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Safety & Limits

Aspect	Details
Access	Read-only (readOnlyHint: true) — the server cannot modify or delete any data
Personal data	No personal data — all sources are aggregated, anonymous public statistics
Rate limits	No enforced external limits; server caps queries at 20 results by default; 30 s HTTP timeout
Authentication	No API keys required — opendata.swiss and arbeit.swiss are publicly accessible
Licenses	SECO data under Creative Commons CCZero (public domain)
Terms of Service	Subject to ToS of: opendata.swiss, SECO, arbeit.swiss
GDPR / DSG	Fully compliant — no personal data transmitted or stored; all data is official public statistics

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MCP Protocol Version

This server serves two protocol eras over the same server object, on fastmcp 4.x / mcp 2.x:

Era	Revision	Shape
Modern	2026-07-28	no handshake — server/discover, one self-contained envelope per request
Handshake	2025-11-25	initialize, then a stateful session

A client that offers the modern era gets it; a client that only knows the handshake era still gets served. Both are pinned separately in tests/test_protokoll_aeren.py, and both are measured — the test negotiates a real connection against this server object rather than comparing two constants.

Pinning only LATEST_PROTOCOL_VERSION would not be enough: in mcp 2.x that name is an alias for the modern era, so it would leave the handshake ceiling free to move — and that ceiling is what most clients in the field actually speak.

Until 0.4.0 this server ran fastmcp 3.x, which pins mcp 1.x. There 2025-11-25 is the highest revision the SDK knows at all, so 2026-07-28 was not partially supported — it was absent. The test that used to guard the one-era state now guards its opposite: it fails if a downgrade takes the modern era away again.

Note for anything reading server metadata: on a modern connection there is no InitializeResult. Use the era-neutral protocol_version / server_info instead of initialize_result.

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development guidelines.

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Security

See SECURITY.md for the security posture and how to report a vulnerability.

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License

Released under the MIT License — Copyright © 2026 Hayal Oezkan.

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Author

Hayal Oezkan · github.com/malkreide

Installation

Run via uv's uvx — no clone or manual install needed. Add to your MCP client config (mcpServers for Claude Desktop, Cursor and Windsurf; use a top-level servers key for VS Code in .vscode/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "seco-labor-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "seco-labor-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}