Expatriate employees may face costly housing and other expenditures
Sixty-five percent of employers across all industries and countries are using mobility programs to enhance their workforce strategies — and many are carefully assessing the cost of international assignments, according to a new report.
An examination of more than 500 cities found some areas can be considerably more expensive to relocate employees to because of currency fluctuations, accommodation price volatility and other factors.
The four most expensive cities in the world for expatriate employees to live in are located in Asia. For the second consecutive year, Hong Kong was found to be the most costly option, followed by Tokyo, Singapore and Seoul.
Zurich was the fifth most expensive city for an international assignment; Shanghai was the sixth, Ashgabat was seventh and Beijing was ranked eighth. New York City and Shenzhen were the ninth and tenth most costly options for employee relocation. Conversely, Tunis, Tashkent and Karachi were found to be the least expensive cities for expatriate employees.
To learn more about the mobility program-related findings, view this summary from Mercer, the company that conducted the research, which provides additional information.