Tokyo once again tops the list of most expensive cities for expats
It’s pretty obvious that the cost of living is a huge issue among expats and potential expats, and for many it’s actually the reason for changing countries in the first place. Only those executives who work for multi-nationals that adjust their salary to completely insure that you won’t be stepping down in quality of life might not care about this, yet another survey has appeared that seems aimed only at them.
Or you might say, this survey, by Mercer, is probably aimed at the human resources people for the companies that those expats work at, because this information is barely useful to anyone else.
One can only assume that these results are based on a basket of goods, such as a 3-bedroom house or apartment, the lease of a new sedan, and full-time child care in that area. It’s easy to see why Tokyo would once again top that chart, since a 3-bedroom apartment is rare there, and extremely expensive. We’ll discuss some other weird things after we take a look at the Top 10.
10 Most Expensive cities for expats in 2012
- Tokyo, Japan
- Luanda, Angola
- Osaka, Japan
- Moscow, Russia
- Geneva, Switzerland
- Zurich, Switzerland
- Singapore, Singapore
- N’Djamena, Chad
- Hong Kong, Hong Kong
- Nagoya, Japan
Does this make you not want to move to Angola?
In their 2011 survey, Luanda, Angola was the number one most expensive, so those of you thinking about moving there might be relieved to see that it’s down to number two. But really, aside from a few hundred people working for oil companies, how many people are considering Angola, so why is it even on the list? I assume that because there is so much poverty that all expat workers live in gated compounds of luxury homes, which drives the cost way up, but I’m not going there regardless.
The Japanese cities and the Swiss cities also make sense because those countries have notoriously high costs of living for everyone, but I also find it curious that Moscow is on this list so high. Again, most salaries of locals are quite low by international standards, so it’s only the fact that “luxury housing” is expensive there that drives costs way up for those lucky enough to qualify for it.
Singapore and Hong Kong are similar, actually, in that most locals can get by on relatively low salaries (with nice housing in Singapore as well), but if it’s assumed that you are unwilling to assimilate to the local style of living at all, then they are very expensive.
I shouldn’t publicize a survey that I think is so flawed, but these surveys are widely publicized everywhere when they come out, and I think it’s unfortunate that they aren’t really showing an accurate picture for anyone but top executives in the process.