Valais Tested by Transition

What is Valais's singularity worth once tested against the numbers? The canton counts a little over 370,000 residents, a GDP that crossed 20 billion in 2022, and growth that holds its course without collapsing or overperforming. Tourism accounts for a seventh of cantonal output and one job in five, but unevenly so: a quarter of Upper Valais depends on it, against a tenth in central and Lower Valais. This touristic dependence conceals a gap in value added per job (75,000 CHF on average against 130,000 CHF across all sectors), which argues for complementing what exists rather than replacing it. Demographically, more than four in five new Valais residents in 2024 come from elsewhere, chiefly from abroad and then from the French-speaking cantons. The canton is ageing fast: more than one Valais resident in ten will have passed 80 by 2035. Three registers, economic, sociological, demographic, converge on a single question, that of resident skilled human capital, and three verbs frame it: retain, attract, pass on.