Economically, Winterthur was one of the homes of Switzerland's rail industry and an industrial centre. The rail industry and other heavy industry have largely disappeared. Amongst the most significant companies was Sulzer Brothers, today's Sulzer Ltd., Sulzer AG, commonly abbreviated to Sulzer. Textile production declined even earlier on. Also the Rietercompany come from Winterthur.
Switzerland's largest bank, and one of the world's large banks, Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), since 1998 UBS AG, was also founded in Winterthur.
Peraves, the manufacturer of the fully enclosed "cabin motorcycle" named the Monotracer, predated by an earlier model named the Ecomobile, has been manufacturing the unusual vehicles since the early 1980s. in 2010 Peraves won the Progressive Insurance Automotive X-Prize with an electric powered version of the Monotracer.
Among other commercial organizations, Winterthur was home to Switzerland's largest insurance business "Winterthur Insurance". Until 2006, the company was the largest in Switzerland and was in Europe's top 10. On 1 January 2007 the Winterthur company was officially acquired by the French AXA group and is now known as AXA Winterthur.
Winterthur has an unemployment rate of 3.13%. As of 2005, there were 594 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 97 businesses involved in this sector; 11603 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 717 businesses in this sector; 39982 people are employed in the tertiary sector, with 3570 businesses in this sector. As of 2007 47.9% of the working population were employed full-time, and 52.1% were employed part-time
