Mercer Institute published its “2020 Cost of Living Survey” in which it compares the cost of living for expatriates in 209 cities across the globe. The purpose of this report is to help multinational companies and governments around the world determine compensation allowances for their expatriate employees. According to Mercer, the economic and social repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic have forced organizations around the world to reconsider their global mobility programs. In details, the report considered that on the short term, companies will be focusing on redeploying employees that have been repatriated in the wake of the pandemic. On the medium term, however, companies may need to reshape their workforce in order to cope with the new economic models that pivot around shortened supply chains, more frequent regional moves and the need to train talent.

In detail, Asian cities emerged as the most expensive cities for expatriates, occupying four of the top five positions, with Hong Kong coming in the first place, followed by Ashgabat-Turkmenistan, and Tokyo-Japan. Zurich (Switzerland), which ranked 4^th, was the only non-Asian city among the five most expensive cities for expatriates.

On a regional basis, Dubai was identified as the most expensive city for expatriates in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region for the year 2020, ranking 23^rd in the world, followed by Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) in the 31^st international place and Abu Dhabi (U.A.E.) in the 39^th international place. More on the regional front, Beirut (Lebanon) ranked 4^th in the region and 45^th in the world in the cost of living for expatriates, advancing 8 places from the 53^rd place it held a year before, followed by Manama – Bahrain (regional rank: 5; global rank: 52), Amman - Jordan (regional rank: 6; global rank: 71), Muscat – Oman (regional rank: 7; global rank 96) and Jeddah – Saudi Arabia (regional rank: 8; global rank: 104) only to name a few.