Ireland
Dublin , 29 April 2009

• Dublin ranks 25th of 215 in Mercer’s 2009 Quality of Living Global City rankings
• Vienna scores highest for overall quality of living, Baghdad the lowest
• Dublin ranks ahead of several major cities including Paris (33rd ), London (38th), and Barcelona (joint 42nd with Portland, USA) in the Quality of Living survey
• This year’s rankings also identify cities with the best infrastructure
• Singapore ranks top for city infrastructure; Dublin ranks 58th of 215 cities
• Cities ranked ahead of Dublin in the City Infrastructure rankings include London (joint 8th with Frankfurt and Hong Kong), Paris (13th), Birmingham / Glasgow (ranked joint 45th)

Dublin ranks 25th of 215 (in top 12%) in the Mercer 2009 Quality of Living Global City rankings, ahead of several major cities including Paris (33rd), London (38th), and Barcelona (42nd).  Vienna has passed Zurich to take the top spot as the world’s city with the best quality of living, according to the Mercer 2009 Quality of Living survey. Geneva is in third position, while Vancouver and Auckland are now joint fourth in the rankings.

Patrick Robertson a Principal at Mercer commented: “As a result of the current financial crisis, multinationals are looking to review their international assignment policies with a view to cutting costs.”  “Many companies plan to reduce the number of medium to long-term international assignments and localise their expatriate compensation packages where possible though an allowance, based on quality of living criteria,” he added.

This year’s ranking also identifies the cities with the best infrastructure based on electricity supply, water availability, telephone and mail services, public transport provision, traffic congestion and the range of international flights from local airports. Singapore is at the top of this index (score 109.1) followed by Munich in second place and Copenhagen in third.  Dublin is ranked 58th out of the 215 cities rated.  Cities ranked ahead of Dublin in the City infrastructure rankings include London (8th), Paris (13th), Birmingham / Glasgow (ranked joint 45th).

Europe

Europe’s cities once more dominate the world’s top 10 for quality of living. Vienna is the city rated with the best quality of living worldwide, moving up one place in the rankings following improvements in Austria’s political and social environment. The rest of the top 10 for Europe are dominated by German and Swiss cities, most of them retaining last year’s ranking and scores. Zurich, in second place, is followed by Geneva (3), Dusseldorf (6), Munich (7), Frankfurt (8) and Bern (9).

Many Eastern European cities have seen an increase in quality of living. A number of countries which joined the European Union back in 2004 have experienced consistent improvement with increased stability, rising living standards and greater availability of international consumer goods. Ljubljana in Slovenia, for example, moves up four places to reach 78 while Bratislava moves up three places to 88. Zagreb moves three places to 103.

Americas

There have been few changes in the rankings for North American cities. Canadian cities still dominate the top of the index for this region. Vancouver (4) retains the top spot and Honolulu (29) ranks as the city in the United States with the highest quality of living. Washington and New York remain in positions 44 and 49 respectively.

In Central and South America, San Juan in Puerto Rico retains the highest ranking at 72, followed by Montevideo, Uruguay at 79. Port au Prince (206) in Haiti continues to rank lowest in the region and has gone down four places in the overall ranking due to food shortages experienced in 2008 and the subsequent riots.

Middle East and Africa

Dubai (77) in the United Arab Emirates and Port Louis in Mauritius (82) are the region’s cities with the best quality of living. Dubai’s transport facilities have witnessed improvements, with the development of its road infrastructure and expansion of its international airport and the city is up six places in the ranking. 
  

Cape Town in South Africa, previously the city in the region with the best quality of living, has dropped substantially in this year’s ratings (from 80 to 87 in 2009). This move follows violent riots in South Africa’s main cities in 2008.

Asia Pacific

Auckland (4) in New Zealand retains its position as the highest ranking city for quality of living in the region. Sydney in Australia follows at 10 and Wellington in New Zealand at 12. While the majority of the region’s cities retain a similar ranking to last year, Singapore (26) is the region’s highest riser, up six places since 2008. The city has gained importance as a financial centre and offers a wide range of international and private schools to cater to its expatriate community. Beijing has also moved three places in the ranking, up from 116 to 113, mainly due to improvements in public transport facilities from the Olympic Games last August.

The Quality of Living Global City rankings are based on a point-scoring index, which sees Vienna score 108.6, and Baghdad 14.4. Cities are ranked against New York as the base city with an index score of 100. Mercer’s Quality of Living ranking covers 215 cities and is conducted to help governments and major companies place employees on international assignments. 

Notes for Editors

The worldwide rankings are produced from the most recent Worldwide Quality of Living Survey, conducted by Mercer. Individual reports are produced for each city surveyed. Comparative quality of living indexes between a base city and a host city are available, as are multiple city comparisons. Further information is available from Mercer Client Services, on tel. +353 (0)1 411 8342. Alternatively, please visit www.mercer.com/qualityofliving 
      

The list of rankings is provided to journalists for reference, and should not be published in full. The top 10 and bottom 10 cities in either list may be reproduced in a table. Data was largely collected between September and November 2008 and is regularly updated to take account of changing circumstances. In particular, the assessments are revised in the case of any new developments. The Mercer database contains more than 420 cities, however only 215 cities have been considered for the quality of living 2008 ranking in order to compare them from one year to the next.

Compensating expatriates to live and work in difficult locations: determining appropriate allowances and incentives

The provision of incentives to reward and recognise the efforts that employees and their families make when taking on international assignments remains a typical practice, particularly for difficult locations. Common incentives include a quality of living allowance and mobility premium. Companies need to be able to determine their compensation package in a rational, consistent and systematic way.
    

Quality of living or hardship allowances are designed to compensate expatriates for differences in the quality of living between their home and host locations. The mobility premium is more intended to compensate for the inconvenience of being uprooted and having to work in another country. The former is typically location-related whilst a mobility premium is usually independent of the host location.
    

A number of major international companies combine these premiums but the vast majority of international companies provide them separately. The latter approach has the advantage of clarity and transparency.

Mercer hardship allowance recommendations
   

Mercer evaluates local living conditions in all the 420 cities it surveys worldwide. Living conditions are analysed according to 39 factors, grouped in 10 categories:

• Political and social environment (political stability, crime, law enforcement, etc)
• Economic environment (currency exchange regulations, banking services, etc)
• Socio-cultural environment (censorship, limitations on personal freedom, etc)
• Health and sanitation (medical supplies and services, infectious diseases, sewage, waste disposal, air pollution, etc)
• Schools and education (standard and availability of international schools, etc)
• Public services and transportation (electricity, water, public transport, traffic congestion, etc)
• Recreation (restaurants, theatres, cinemas, sports and leisure, etc)
• Consumer goods (availability of food/daily consumption items, cars, etc)
• Housing (housing, household appliances, furniture, maintenance services, etc)
• Natural environment (climate, record of natural disasters)

The scores attributed to each factor allow for city-to-city comparisons to be made. The result is a Quality of Living Index which compares the relative differences between any two locations. For the indices to be used in a practical manner, Mercer has created a grid that allows companies to link the resulting index to a Quality of Living Allowance amount by recommending a percentage value in relation to the index.

    
Top 50 cities: Quality of living

Base City: New York, US (=100)

Top 50 rankings - City infrastructure

* City Infrastructure Ranking 2009 includes the following criteria: electricity, water availability, telephone, mail, public transport, traffic congestion and airport.