> US and Canadian citizens can get Permit C (unconditional residency permit) after 5 years on Permit B (employment-bound permit).

5 years satisfies the time requirement for American and Canadian citizens (and certain other countries) but they still have to satify the other requirements, the most burdensome of which is learning the local language. In Zürich, you have to learn A2 level German specifically (which actually isn't too hard) but this varies by canton.

> Citizenship is 5 more years after that.

Mostly, just note that in addition, you have to have been living in the canton and commune in which you want to obtain citizenship for a certain amount of time.

Also, integration is a requirement for citizenship. What this means varies by commune but the main thing is that you've learned an official language to a working level (B1 I think).

> For all other countries it's 10+10 years.

As a third country national you can obtain a residence permit (C) within 5 years by integration. Integration mainly means learning the local language to a particular level, which varies by canton (in Zürich it's B1 German).

I believe time spent living on a B permit counts towards citizenship so you can do it in 5+5 no matter where you're from, just like the US.

In theory. I looked into emigrating to Switzerland a few years ago and I was told that getting a work permit was nearly impossible as a US citizen. Swiss companies have to prove that they can't find an EU passport holder with the expertise necessary for the job before they can hire an American or any other non-EU passport holder.

Unless something has changed?

What that really means is that they need to have a job ad open for 3 months that they didn't hire someone else into before they can justify hiring a non-EU citizen. It helps if you're doing something specialized or have some intersection of skills for the justification, but it isn't insurmountable, just hard enough so that they only get the people who really want it.

Do you know an American or Canadian who was hired this way? Or is this speculation?

Me, twice (I changed jobs). However what I do is fairly specialized, so I'm not surprised they weren't able to find someone qualified in 3 months.

The other part of making it hard is so that the employer doesn't undertake the effort unless they really need the person and can't do with a local. I know the company made an exception for me, as they did for one other employee, but for the most part their policy is not to hire non-Swiss/EU citizens due to the administrative burden.

Thanks for setting me straight! I'll give it another shot after I've chosen a handle for my T-shape. I'm probably a bit too generalized to pull this off right now.