Surprise suffers sales slump
Last year, the street magazine *Surprise* saw a drastic drop in sales. Sales fell by several thousand copies. The magazine's publishers attribute this to stricter guidelines for welfare recipients and asylum seekers.
In spring 2010, around 250 sales staff were still selling around 20,000 Surprise magazines every two weeks. There are now still around 200 sellers, each selling around 15,000 copies. Surprise managing director Paola Gallo said this when asked by the SDA news agency.
Gallo confirmed a report in the Basler Zeitung newspaper on Monday. There are two reasons for the slump, as Gallo explained: several cantons enforced a strict limit on how much social welfare recipients could earn as a supplement. In Zurich, Bern and Baselland in particular, this has meant that many sellers have been unable to sell any or far fewer magazines. Another problem for Surprise is that several cantons - including Zurich and Baselland - are implementing the Foreign Nationals Act more restrictively. "People with pending asylum proceedings are no longer allowed to sell magazines in these cantons," said Gallo, adding that in Zurich, for example, numerous sellers were lost in one fell swoop.
The Surprise makers therefore sought talks with the cantons. They have already been successful in the canton of Baselland, where Surprise now offers an integration program that is paid for by the canton. Participants in the program are trained in sales, receive a German course and work as Surprise salespeople.
Surprise is a biweekly Swiss street magazine produced by journalists and sold by people who are no longer integrated into the labor market. The sellers are allowed to keep CHF 2.70 of the magazine price - CHF 6. The institution also runs its own national street football league and a choir.
