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Written by J.J. Marshall
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Tuesday, 22 September 2009 20:48 |
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All Prices are in USD
Housing Costs:
With a furnished 4 room apartment running from $12,890 to $3,670 and an unfurnished 3 room apartment running you $11,280 to $1,670 Hong Kong is at the top of the list of the most expensive cities to rent an apartment in. With the housing costs so high you will want to see if you are able to get a company to give you a housing allowance.
Vehicle:
Mazda 6 2.0 Sedan $21,900
Tax $719
Fuel $1.69 per liter
Food Prices:
Hong Kong ranks in the top ten as the city you will pay the most for food. People in Tokyo, Zurich, Geneva, Caracas, New York, and Chicago only pay more for food compared to the cites on the UBS Prices and Earnings Report 2009. This is something you will have to consider before taking a job in Hong Kong. If a company is going to pay you a cost of living allowance it may help off set the high food prices.
Clothing:
Hong Kong may be pretty high when it comes to food prices and apartment prices but when it comes to clothing it falls more towards the middle of the pack. Not enough to make up for the high costs of either the food prices or the housing costs but if you receive company housing and a company vehicle or some form of COLA it is much more manageable to take a job here.
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Written by J.J. Marshall
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Thursday, 17 September 2009 09:29 |
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Bangkok has an average wage of $2.60 an hour and with the low wage level apartments are pretty reasonable. If you are working for a company from your home country that has positions open that can not be filled by locals you are looking at a wage that will be closer to your own countries wage level. An example would be a job with Raytheon under a Department of Defense contract if you were a U.S. Citizen. You would be making much higher than the average wage and able to afford the apartment prices and living expenses that are rather low compared to other places around the world.
With a furnished apartment on the high end costing about $930 USD and a low end of $630 USD you will want to ensure your company either covers this expense for you or you will have a high enough wage to cover this expense yourself. If you decide to buy a car while working in Thailand prepare to spend about $35K on something like a Toyota Camry. Like a housing allowance many companies give you a vehicle allowance as well. These are things you are going to bring up during negotiations. The food prices in Thailand are a little below the worlds average as are the costs for various services like a haircut, phone charges, dry cleaning, movie tickets, restaurant meals, and a DSL connection.
Thailand also had a lower than average ranking when it came to electronics and Clothing. When the UBS took a basket of electronics and priced them around the world the items came to about $2600 in Bangkok compared to the worldwide average of $3210. Clothing in Thailand for both men and women came in lower than the worldwide average. To see the UBS report go to the USB Prices and Earnings report on their website.
If you are thinking of living overseas Thailand is not a bid choice for work or retirment. To find jobs in Thailand go to the Thialand Jobs page or go to the job search page and search for jobs in Thialand.
Prices and Earnings listed in this article are from the UBS Prices and Earnings 2009 report. To learn more about the UBS go to UBS.com
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Living & Working Overseas
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Written by Island Hopper
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With the job market where it is today more and more Americans decide to make the jump overseas. How many Americans are turning to the expat way of life is unclear because it seems everyone reporting this comes up with their own numbers. One article in the Wall Street Journal talks about the number of Americans in the financial sector tuning to overseas assignments for work. Until recently the U.S. expats have been mostly younger unattached professionals who found working overseas could give them a better standard of living along with a higher salary. But within the last year I have been noticing more and more people talking jobs overseas who bring their whole family. There has always been expats with families from the U.S. working overseas in the places I have worked but most of them met while working overseas when they were single. In the article “More Americans Vault Overseas to search for Jobs” by Dana Mattioli, it talks about more and more families are willing to uproot to find work overseas.
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Written by J.J. Marshall
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Sunday, 30 August 2009 04:34 |
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U.S. citizens are turning to new lands of Opportunities at rate not seen before in the United States. In the article “A growing trend of leaving America” written by Jay Tolson on the USNews website it states that a series of recent Zogby polls commissioned by the New Global Initiatives gives a range of at least 3 million U.S. citizens a year make the move overseas. They say most of those moving overseas are between the age of 25 and 34. The CEO of the New Global Initiatives, Robert Adams goes on to say that only the Americans moving abroad know why they are making the move. There is no movement and no leader. “It is just millions of people making individual decisions to do it.” It goes on to mention that these U.S. citizens moving abroad are doing so not because of political reasons but to find opportunities they cannot find in the U.S. right now. These U.S. citizens are not technically immigrating because most of them are not giving up their citizenship. I believe that these new Expats are simply doing what U.S. citizens have always done. Find opportunities and take advantage of them. With the 9.7% unemployment rate finding jobs in the U.S. right now is a little difficult. By expanding your search to the Global market finding a job becomes a lot easier because you have just increased the amount of jobs you qualify for.
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Last Updated on Friday, 25 September 2009 21:20 |
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Cost Of Living International Rankings For 1 April 2009
Author: Steven Coleman
International cost of living rankings are the result of comparing the cost of an expatriate's personal budget, using the local prices for the same defined quantities of the same goods and services in each country throughout the world.
Our findings show that the compound impact of the multifaceted global economic trends that impact each country in one way or another, are contributing to rapid substantial changes in the relative cost of living of countries around the world. The changes in relative cost of living are large and have occurred in a relatively short period of time. The reason for this is due to the fact that so many economic crises are occurring simultaneously. 2008 saw the housing bubble burst followed by the failure of a number of global fund / asset management, insurance and banking giants. Some have been liquidated or taken over; others have been bailed out with government funds. In 2009 we have seen the continued fall in house prices which many believe have yet to bottom out. Stock prices and market indexes are down to levels last seen a decade or more ago. The trend towards decreased inflation and lower interest rates continues in developed and developing markets. We are also experiencing exchange rate volatility with a number of large economies seeing their currency weaken considerably in the past year. The economic impact is continuing to spread around the globe. We are currently seeing a truly global recession with reduced demand for manufacturing inputs and outputs as well as reduced energy demand and large scale job losses.
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