London still most popular as the desire to work abroad declines

LONDON remains the most attractive city in the world for people moving for work, despite Brexit.

This is according to a report from global management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and online recruitment company The Network.

While European cities dominated the top ten desirable places for employees considering work overseas, no Irish city featured on the list.

The other European cities proving popular are Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Paris.

Between 50pc and 60pc of Irish people surveyed for the report said they that they were willing to move abroad for work or were already working overseas.

However, the report points to tightening trade and immigration policies in the Unites States, as well as the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, as factors that are affecting employees’ desire to emigrate for work.

Overall, 57pc of respondents to the ‘Decoding Global Talent 2018’ report said they would move to another country for their career.

While this number is considerable, it is a fall of seven percentage points from when BCG previously carried out this survey in 2014.

“It could be that the world is becoming less mobile,” BCG said.

“Or it could be that the work itself is becoming more global, making it unnecessary for people to uproot their lives to find satisfying, well-paying jobs.”

However, mobility is not lower everywhere, the survey of over 360,000 employees in 197 countries found.

More than nine in ten Indians said they would be willing to move to another country for the right job, while seven in ten employees surveyed in Brazil said that they would be willing to move.

With both populations the willingness to work abroad has increased significantly since 2014.

Among the countries whose workforce is significantly less inclined to consider a foreign work assignment now is China.

One person who participated in the BCG report, Eric Li, an IT executive based in Shanghai, said China has become an innovator in many sectors.

He said this is making it unnecessary for Chinese employees to move overseas in order to advance their careers.

Meanwhile in Central and Eastern European countries, improving economic conditions appear to have contributed to what was describes as a “steep fall-off” in mobility in many of the countries, the report found.

Employees surveyed in Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, and Romania are all below the mobility average, having been above it by wide margins in 2014.

“This part of the world has seen a lot of investment and most economies here are growing at rates above the global average,” BCG said.

As well as economic conditions, personal factors naturally play into workers’ willingness to move.

In particular, members of the workforce that do not

have children are more likely than people who do to say they would be willing to consider an opportunity in another country (60pc of nonparents are willing versus 52pc of parents).

Almost two-thirds of people who are single said that they would be more willing consider working abroad, in comparison to just over one in two people who are married.

The report also found that men were more willing to consider a move overseas than women.