🇨🇭 Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio

SECO Labor Market MCP Server

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

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 →

Related MCP server: mcp-destatis

Data Sources (Phase 1 — No Auth Required)

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  seco-labor-mcp                     │
│                                                     │
│  ┌─────────────┐    ┌──────────────────────────┐   │
│  │  FastMCP    │    │      9 MCP Tools         │   │
│  │  Server     │◄──►│  seco_search_datasets    │   │
│  │  (stdio /   │    │  seco_get_dataset        │   │
│  │   SSE)      │    │  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)      │
  └───────────────────────────────────┘

Tools

12 of a maximum of 15 tools.

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:

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.

Installation

Claude Desktop (stdio)

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

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

Cloud / SSE

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

The SSE 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=sse PORT=8000 seco-labor-mcp   # container only

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

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" }

Key Concepts

Arbeitslose vs. Stellensuchende

Eselsbrücke: Arbeitslose ⊂ Stellensuchende — Arbeitslose sind eine Teilmenge.

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.

Portfolio Synergies

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

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.

Safety & Limits

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development guidelines.

Security

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

License

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

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"
      ]
    }
  }
}