Vienna again topped this years Quality of Living Survey, conducted by Mercer, followed by Zurich, Auckland, Munich and Vancouver in the top five. The survey is meant to help multinational companies fairly compensate employees on international assignments gauging factors such as safety, health, education, transportation and others.
The survey covers 221 cities ranked against New York, which is the benchmark at 100 points. New York itself came in 44th place.
The majority of the top cities were in Europe, including Dsseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Copenhagen and Bern, which rounded out the top ten. (Sydney tied Bern for tenth place.) The lowest-ranking European city is Tbilisi, Georgia (213).
The highest-ranking U.S. cities were Honolulu (28), San Francisco (29), Boston (35), Chicago (42) and Washington, D.C. (43). Detroit (71) is the lowest-ranking U.S. city. Canadian cities tended to dominate North America on the list, outranking their U.S. counterparts, including Vancouver (5), Ottawa (14), Toronto (15), Montreal (23) and Calgary (32).
In Asia-Pacific, after Auckland and Sydney were Wellington (13), Melbourne (17), Perth (21), Singapore (25), and Japanese cities Tokyo (44), Kobe (48), Yokohama (49) and Osaka (57). Dhaka, Bangladesh (203); Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (204); and Dushanbe, Tajikistan (207) were toward the bottom of the list.
Dubai (73) and Abu Dhabi (78) have the best quality of living in the Middle East and Africa, according to Mercer, followed by Port Louis in Mauritius (82), Cape Town (89) Johannesburg (94), Victoria in the Seychelles (96) and Tel Aviv (99). This region has 15 cities in the bottom 20, including Lagos, Nigeria (202); Bamako, Mali (209); Khartoum, Sudan (217); and NDjamena, Chad (218). Baghdad, Iraq (221) is the lowest-ranking city both regionally and globally.
This years ranking separately identified the cities with the best infrastructure based on electricity supply, water availability, telephone and mail services, public transportation, traffic congestion and the range of international flights from local airports. Singapore topped that list, followed by Frankfurt, Munich, Copenhagen and Dusseldorf.
In order for multinational companies to ensure their expatriates are compensated appropriately and an adequate hardship allowance is included in compensation packages, they must be aware of current events and local circumstances, says Slagin Parakatil, senior researcher at Mercer. Factors such as internal stability, law enforcement effectiveness, crime levels and medical facilities are important to consider when deciding on an international assignment, and the impact on daily life that could be encountered by the expatriate in overseas placements.
(CG)