Melbourne is the highest ranking city for remote workers with Cape Town scoring 63 out of 80 cities, according to a study that ranks the attractiveness of 80 global cities for remote working
The company ranks the cities according to their remote working compliance regulations, cost of living, infrastructure and liveability.
WorkMotion, a global employment specialists that helps other companies hire employees based anywhere in the world, ranked Melbourne as the highest ranking city in the index as it scored well for employment compliance factors, citizen happiness and its digital nomad visa. Montreal and Sydney rank second and third.
Dublin ranked best for ease of employment compliance, meaning its compliance regulations were most straightforward, ahead of Helsinki and Copenhagen.
The city with the happiest citizens is Copenhagen, followed by Bern and Wellington. Istanbul had the most favourable tax rates for remote workers, ahead of Lisbon and Hong Kong.
WorkMotion co-founder and managing director Carsten Lebtig said this week the growth of remote working has opened up new avenues for employees around the world.
“People are increasingly less restricted by their location and the size of its job pool, and can regard foreign locations as possible work destinations regardless of whether or not they speak the local language. Now that the initial shock of the pandemic has subsided, we wanted to capture a snapshot of the current remote working landscape as the first step in tracking how it changes over the coming years. Many remote workers are drawn to cities by the promise of a different lifestyle or climate,” said Lebtig.
Lebtig said that although they had long anticipated the move to remote working and set up WorkMotion last year with this in mind, the pandemic had hastened the trend far faster than they could have imagined.
He said the technology for remote work was well-established and in use prior to the pandemic; what had changed in the intervening period was the mindset companies have towards remote working.
Many people working in office jobs enjoyed flexi working and split their time between their home and office, with little or no effect on productivity levels.
“Some companies, meanwhile, have been able to reduce the size of their offices, cutting expenses in doing so. Now that the dust is settling, many companies are beginning to look further afield when hiring employees, comfortable with the idea that the best person for the job might be located in a different country. The study gives insight into which countries have the most straightforward regulations when hiring remote workers,” he said.
WorkMotion began the study by identifying a list of indicators that impact whether a city was a good place for relocation, covering employment compliance regulations, infrastructure, costs and liveability. They then assessed thousands of global cities against a range of factors related to remote working, before selecting the best scoring 80 cities.
For the first category of Remote Working Compliance, they assessed how straightforward it was for companies to compliantly hire remote workers based on local legislation, in addition to the legal requirements they must adhere to when employing a remote worker.
They reviewed each city’s civic infrastructure by assessing the levels of political stability, gender equality, minority equality and LGBT+ equality. The cities’ level of safety and security was also evaluated, in addition to the quality of the public education system, health system and the access citizens have to healthcare. Finally, they assessed each city’s liveability by looking at the quality and variety of the cultural attractions on offer, the cost and quality of the mobility and data on citizens’ happiness. The resulting study provided an assessment of the current remote working landscape by ranking 80 global cities for their accessibility and attractiveness.
WorkMotion said when identifying possible destinations for relocation, remote workers must consider a range of factors ranging from the practical to the desirable as not many cities could offer them all.
Lebtig said it was undeniable that cities legislating to attract remote workers become far more attractive than those that do not. He said making it easier for employees to work remotely in their city by offering this demographic specific visas meant the relocation process became far smoother.
“Only 1 cities in the study offer a digital nomad visa, which is a specific document that allows remote workers to continue their employment in the country of relocation, demonstrating that the majority of cities still lag behind in this area. We expect to see this change over the next few years, as remote working becomes more common and cities begin to recognise the benefits it can bring,” Lebtig said.
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