Expat Surveys

[Cerberus1]

A couple of expat annual surveys were released a few weeks ago while the forum was offline and as everyone likes a good survey, here are the results of the Oslo jury..

Mercer Quality of Living Rankings 2017

Melbourne and Sydney have held onto their top 20 positions in Mercer’s annual Quality of Living ranking 10th and 16th respectively.

Although being regarded as a highly desirable and low-risk place to live, Australian cities fall dramatically behind Europe, where despite increased political and financial volatility its cities offer the world’s highest quality of living and remain attractive destinations for businesses looking to establish overseas bases or send employees on international assignment.

Now in its 19th year, the survey benchmarks cities against New York to assist multi-national organisations determine wages and conditions for their employees on overseas assignments.  This year’s survey paid particular attention to city infrastructure, with only Sydney making the top 10 followed by Perth (32), Melbourne (34) and Brisbane (37). 

Lorraine Jennings, Mercer’s Global Mobility Practice Leader in Australia and New Zealand said Australian cities have been ranked amongst the best in the world due to our safety, cultural diverse, skilled local workforce and robust infrastructure which can be a key competitive advantage in trying to attract multinational companies, talent and foreign investments.

“The report provides a qualitative measure of living conditions around the world to enable organisations to apply relative incentives to motivate employees to accept foreign assignments, particularly in a compromised quality of living location.  The success factors for foreign assignments is attributed to ease of travel and communication, health considerations, the local political environment, personal safety and access to public services.

“Sydney’s strong endorsement on the City Infrastructure ranking was due to its high weighting under categories including variety of transport options, local and international connectivity and access to electricity and drinkable water which are essential needs of expatriates arriving in a new location on assignment.

“There is room for Australia to improve in the rankings though, with factors such as Melbourne’s traffic congestion and a nation-wide low score on availability of international flights and international schools contributing to perhaps lower-than-expected results,” she said.

Mercer’s authoritative survey is one of the world’s most comprehensive and is conducted annually to enable multinational companies and other organisations to compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments. In addition to valuable data, Mercer’s Quality of Living surveys provide hardship premium recommendations for over 450 cities throughout the world; this year’s ranking includes 231 of these cities.

Australia and New Zealand
New Zealand and Australia continue to rank highly in quality of living: Auckland (3), Sydney (10), Wellington (15), and Melbourne (16) all remain in the top 20. However, when ranked for infrastructure, only Sydney (8) makes the top ten, with Perth (32), Melbourne (34), and Brisbane (37) also ranking well for infrastructure in Oceania. By and large, cities in Oceania enjoy good quality of living, though criteria such as airport connectivity and traffic congestion are among the factors that see them ranked lower in terms of city infrastructure.

 

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HSBC Expat Explorer 2017

 

Australia is no longer regarded as being a top ten destination for expat workers, according to the ninth edition of the Expat Explorer report released by HSBC Bank last month.

Previously a top ten regular, Australia now ranks at number 11 based off responses of nearly 27,000 expat workers from 190 different nations, displaced by the likes of New Zealand, Canada, Bahrain and the Czech Republic, along with the top overall destination, Singapore.

In order to determine individual country rankings, HSBC scored each country based on three factors that influence the experience of an expat worker: economics, experience and family.

HSBC says the economics score is determined by responses towards personal finances, confidence in the local economy and overall working life.

The experience score is largely focused on lifestyle, measuring factors such as quality of life, the community around them and the ease of establishing themselves once in the country.

Finally, the family score is based on views regarding how family-friendly the nation is, assessing factors such as cultural acceptance, education and childcare, along with the costs for each.

As highlighted in the table above, had it not been for the experiences obtained by living in Australia, the overall rating would have been significantly lower than 11.

Australia ranked a lowly 18th for economics, and 20th for family, but number five in terms experience.

The UK, at 52%, made up the vast majority of expats surveyed.

[starlight7]

Airport connectivity for Melbourne is just a sad joke I am afraid.  It is absolutely dreadful and worse each time you go there.  Makes us a laughing stock.

[Cerberus1]

I almost forgot, we've also recently had the '2017 World Happiness Report' which is is a measure of happiness published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Data is collected from people in over 150 countries. Each variable measured reveals a populated-weighted average score on a scale running from 0 to 10 that is tracked over time and compared against other countries. These variables currently include: real GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption. 

The 10 happiest countries in the world

1. Norway
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
4. Switzerland
5. Finland
6. Netherlands
7. Canada
8. New Zealand
9. Australia
10. Sweden

Others: 19. UK

 

 

[Guest The Pom Queen]

6 hours ago, starlight7 said:

Airport connectivity for Melbourne is just a sad joke I am afraid.  It is absolutely dreadful and worse each time you go there.  Makes us a laughing stock.

I can't understand why they haven't sorted this out yet. Is there even a bus service up there I can't remember? Or is it all shuttles?

[Cerberus1]

Not likely to get the rail line any time soon.. Infrastructure Victoria has recommended a train line within 15-30 years, it suggests that in the next decade, the focus should be on improving bus services between the airport and the CBD.

[Collie]

They have that express bus which is $18 to Spencer st and takes about 20minutes (non peak)

[Perthbum]

On 12/04/2017 at 0:57 PM, Cerberus1 said:

I almost forgot, we've also recently had the '2017 World Happiness Report' which is is a measure of happiness published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Data is collected from people in over 150 countries. Each variable measured reveals a populated-weighted average score on a scale running from 0 to 10 that is tracked over time and compared against other countries. These variables currently include: real GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption. 

The 10 happiest countries in the world

1. Norway
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
4. Switzerland
5. Finland
6. Netherlands
7. Canada
8. New Zealand
9. Australia
10. Sweden

Others: 19. UK

 

I think 9th is far to generous to be honest, as a saffa I find people far more happy in the UK than Oz, probably as there is far more to do and europe on the doorstep.