Yes, we're still on a global economic roller coaster (who said the world is flat?), with good and bad news from the U.S., Europe and Asia causing markets to shoot up and down weekly or even daily. But, at the end of the ride, it still looks like we'll all be doing much more rather than less global business. Case in point: For i4cp's recent member-driven Global Mobility Practices study, we asked if companies are anticipating more or fewer international assignments over the next 18 months. Almost 9 out of 10 said they expected more (46%) or about the same number (43%) of international assignments.

How can the purportedly slowing rate of H-1B visa applications to the US State Department since April 2010 be interpreted? A recent article in Fortune magazine suggests that the reversal of the so-called "brain drain" points to a worrying trend related both to perceived long-term consequences of the current economic recession and the waning appeal of the specialised job market in the US. Traditionally reserving a quota of 65,000 out of the millions of non-immigrant visas granted in the US each year, H-1B visas are granted to those with specialised knowledge - usually postgraduates taking jobs in science and industry, but also including professionals such as doctors and lawyers.

Luanda in Angola is the world’s most expensive city for expatriates, according to the latest Cost of Living Survey from Mercer. Tokyo is in second position with Ndjamena in Chad in third place. Moscow is in fourth position followed by Geneva in fifth while Karachi is ranked as the world’s least expensive city. The survey found that Luanda is three times as costly as Karachi. From the survey, New York (27) is the most expensive city in the United States, followed by Los Angeles (55), White Plains (83) and Chicago (91). Winston-Salem (197) is ranked as the least expensive city in the United States.

During the depths of the global economic crisis, containing corporate costs was the driving factor behind companies' decisions about sending employees on overseas assignments. Now, with fresh statistics showing companies increasing assignments this year, they are refocusing their programs to ensure they clearly support strategic business objectives. During the first quarter of this year, Brookfield Global Relocation Services surveyed senior mobility managers from multinational firms to determine the direction and nature of mobility strategy within their companies. The report, aptly titled "What is Your Strategy for International Employee Mobility?" found that one of the key outcomes of the global economic downturn has been the emergence of the international employee mobility practice as a strategic partner for international companies, impacting purpose, function and alignment of the international assignment program.

If you’re moving from London to Vancouver for work, ditch the tie and put down that pint. You won’t need to learn a new language or take a crash course in Vancouver business etiquette but you’ll definitely need to loosen up and leave some of those big city habits behind.

Expats often use banks and financial service providers in one of the many offshore centres, but if you have a problem and wish to complain yet are thousands of miles away, what are your options? While ranting and raving down the telephone may initially seem a good way of venting your frustration, in truth there's little the call centre staff can do apart from make your feelings known to senior staff and then possibly put you in the 'Cold Call' folder as a form of revenge for your tirade against them (believe me it happens!). As an expatriate you have the added problem of time zones to contend with and overseas postal services. So, if you have a complaint against your bank, investment provider or financial adviser, what should you do? Write a letter? But who to and what do you say? Follow these steps and you will have a better chance of getting your problem resolved.

A new report from Brookfield Global Relocation Services (http://www.brookfieldgrs.com) concludes that the coming decade will be a critical one for companies with international workforces, as they grapple with several key issues, including the changing nature of temporary assignments, so-called "cross-border" commuters and emerging markets. Titled "Employee Mobility in the New Decade," the research report was released today at the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM) annual conference in San Diego.

Analysts are bullish on the UAE economy. But for many expatriates, the decision to stay or head home depends on complex cultural and personal issues, and not just financial concerns. Despite the turmoil of the financial crisis and Dubai’s debt problems, analysts are bullish on the UAE. Investor confidence has posted marked gains following the announcement of Dubai World’s restructuring proposal, and the Emirates as a whole is now seen as an economic bright spot in the region. The net effect has been a boost in business confidence, which makes for reassuring news for nationals and expats alike. SHUAA Capital last week announced a “dramatic, positive change in investor sentiment towards the UAE,” according to the results of their GCC Investor Sentiment Index. Words like “sustained market recovery” and “driver of sentiment” were used to describe the upbeat attitude about the Emirates.

Employees in Europe receive the most generous statutory holiday allowances in the world according to data released by Mercer. However, taking public holidays into account, employees in Lithuania and Brazil have the potential to access the most time off work. The data comes from Mercer’s 2009 Worldwide Benefit and Employment Guidelines which provides data into global working practices and regulations. The report analyses both the statutory minimum number of days’ holiday that companies must provide to staff, as well as the number of public holidays in over 40 countries. The following comparison is based on statutory entitlements for an employee working five days a week, with 10 years’ service.

Vienna retains the top spot as the city with the world’s best quality of living, according to the Mercer 2010 Quality of Living Survey. Zurich and Geneva follow in second and third place, respectively, while Vancouver and Auckland remain fourth in the rankings. The highest-ranking city in the United States is Honolulu at 31, followed by San Francisco at 32. Mercer conducts the ranking to help governments and multinational companies compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments. The rankings are based on a point-scoring index, with Vienna scoring 108.6 and Baghdad 14.7. Cities are ranked against New York as the base city, with an index score of 100.

Want to live longer and healthier? You can increase your chances if you move out of the U.S. So says InternationalLiving.comin a survey of its editors and writers from around the world. Experts say that optimism and purpose, a low stress level, a natural diet and an active lifestyle are three times as important as your genetic makeup when it comes to enjoying a long and healthy life. It’s much easier to embrace those elements when you’re living in a place where they come naturally, as they do in InternationalLiving.comeditors’ top picks for the world’s healthiest places to live: Costa Rica, Ecuador, New Zealand, Panama, and Sardinia.

A wide majority of global executives are willing to relocate for the right career opportunity, according to Korn/Ferry’s latest Executive Quiz. The Executive Quiz, commissioned by The Korn/Ferry Institute, surveyed executives from 65 countries about their motivations to relocate. Overall, a staggering 82 percent of global executives said they are willing to relocate to a different region, state or country. In the April survey, 47 percent of the respondents expressed an “extreme willingness” to relocate to a different region, state or country, and 35 percent said they are “somewhat willing.”

Don’t let the cold and the thousands of snowbirds fleeing south each winter fool you… Canada is in the Top Ten places on the planet to live according to the 2010 International Living Quality of Life Index. Canada placed 9th on this year’s Quality of Life Index and placed in the Top Ten for the first time since the Index started nearly 30 years ago.

Despite the current economic recession, businesses are optimistic about the volumes and budgets for future corporate relocations, according to Atlas Van Lines' 43rd annual Corporate Relocation Survey released today. More than one in five firms surveyed expect relocation volumes to increase in 2010, a great improvement over last year, when more than half of surveyed firms predicted a decrease in relocations.

In a survey of readers on March 22, 2010, InternationalLiving.com found that nearly 96% of respondents said they are more likely to move out of the United States than they were last year. More than 500,000 readers of the company’s free Daily E-letter were asked a single question: Are you more open to moving outside the United States than you were 12 months ago? A stunning 95.6% of those who responded said they were now more willing to make the move and leave the U.S.

Perhaps you are standing at the kitchen window, watching the rain make paddling pool-size puddles on the lawn. Or you’re nose-to-tail in rush hour traffic after yet another 10-hour day in the office. And all the while you are thinking, “Why am I here? Why am I doing this?” Instead you picture yourself kicking back on a sun lounger, a cocktail in one hand, sunshine sparkling off the cool, blue pool beside you.

The deep global recession drove broad reductions in the number of corporate international assignments during 2009. This decrease (46 percent) was nearly double what was forecasted by the respondents in last year’s survey. The good news is that despite last year’s deep cuts, almost half of the companies (44 percent) in this year’s survey expect their expatriate populations to expand. Meanwhile, 44 percent of respondents expect their overseas assignments to remain the same, while 12 percent forecast a decrease.

The world comes to the Big Apple for its fashion, its food, and its energy. Is it any wonder then that Manhattan ranks as the best city in the nation to have a blast?

The locals wear long, all-covering robes. They pray five times a day in one of the city's many mosques. Each year, they celebrate Ramadan, fasting from dawn to dusk. Many expatriates, instead, love to hang out at the beach, often in skimpy bathing suits making the most of the year-round sunshine. They go to beach-side cafes to drink and eat with friends, enjoying the tax-free lifestyle of the sunny sheikdom-by-the-sea. Only rub is expatriates overwhelmingly outnumber locals -- by more than eight to one.

How long do you have to live in a country to feel like you know what on earth everyone’s talking about? For British citizens living in the United States, there’s not even a second language involved as they’re all supposed to be speaking English, but the real confusion comes from day to day expressions which bear no relation to their actual meaning. Here are some examples.

With its beaches, outdoor lifestyle and friendly schools, Australia has been voted the world's best country to bring up children by expatriates parents working there, an HSBC bank survey shows. Australia provided the best environment for healthy and active children, with more than three quarters of expat kids spending more time outdoors than in their home country, the survey said.

The speed of modern life and increasing pressure at work is making it more difficult for people in this eastern economic hub to get a decent night's sleep, showed a survey done for World Sleep Day, which fell on Sunday. Conducted by the Shanghai Institution of Traditional Chinese Medicine for Sleep Disorders, the survey shows about 38 percent of adults in the city suffer some form of insomnia. The number of women with insomnia is 1.5 times that of men.

Według danych Eurofound, dojazd do i z pracy zajmuje statystycznemu Polakowi 42,2 minuty dziennie. Dla porównania: mieszkańcy Rumunii poświęcają tej czynności niemal 54 minuty, a Estończycy – 48,5.

Many employers sponsor H-1B holders to have them fill temporary posts, not to become full-time residents of the U.S., according to a study released last week by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit think tank. The differences in the ways companies use H-1B visas can be stark, according to the study, which was authored by Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a longtime critic of the H-1B visa program.

Australia's immigration minister, Chris Evans, has announced policy changes to attract more highly skilled workers. He criticised the current trend for new arrivals to sign up for cookery or hairdressing courses to gain residency. Mr Evans said Australia would abolish the current list of 106 skills in demand and review a points test used to assess migrants.

At least 20,000 applications from foreign students for permanent residence have been cancelled because of their poor English and qualifications considered no longer in demand. In the biggest shake-up of what had become an education-migration industry, Immigration Minister Senator Chris Evans last week announced an overhaul of Australia's independent skilled migration system. Evans said the aim was to break the link between students studying a trade in short supply and remaining in the country.

Findings from a recent BlueSteps survey show that senior executives around the world are equally as willing to relocate overseas (70%) for a new career opportunity as nationally (74%), indicating an increased interest in and importance of global opportunities. The willingness of BlueSteps members to relocate has stayed constant over the past 2 years (a 2008 survey showed that 78% would consider relocation), but their equal interest today in international career progression is particularly striking. With the recession taking its toll on executive opportunities, it appears these senior candidates have realized it is essential to cast a wider net when searching for and considering their next career move.

Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne is an extremely popular destination for expatriates from all over the world. The state capital of Victoria in south eastern Australia, Melbourne enjoys a mild, temperate climate with four distinct seasons. The city of Melbourne is located just a few kilometres inland from Port Phillip Bay, with the main part of the city on the northern bank of the Yarra River, with its historic Victorian bridges.

Almost half of new expatriates leave China early because they have difficulty adjusting to the lifestyle, a consultancy firm said. China Transition Institute (CTI) president David Israel-Rosen said most foreigners are unprepared for what life will be like when they arrive in China. It was moving from the West to the East, it is not like moving from Chicago to Denver.

The UK and Ireland are the worst places in Europe to live, according to the latest uSwitch.com Quality of Life Index. While the UK enjoys the highest net household income in Europe, quality of life is the poorest, proving that there is more to good living than money. Long working hours, lower holiday entitlement and a high cost of living all contribute to a poor quality of life in the UK – and it’s not much better for the Irish either:

Do you wonder what Christmas is like in Japan? It is estimated that less than 1% of Japan's population is Christian. Also, December 25th is not a Japanese national holiday. Unless it is on weekend, Japanese people work and go to school on the day. Christmas is mostly a commercial event in Japan. Many people don't know exactly what the origin of Christmas is. The big corporations do the main decorating. They light their buildings and the trees.

A programme that allows international students to work for up to three years after graduation just might increase Canada's recruitment competitiveness. Employment of that duration puts them on an immigration fast track.

Looking to work overseas? Head to Canada, Australia or Thailand, according to an annual global survey which found recession-hit Britain was one of the worst locations to live for expatriates.

Thousands of foreign workers living in India were required to leave the country by November 7as part of that country’s government crackdown on tax-dodging expatriates and unskilled labor, according to an Agence France-Presse story.

With the nation's unemployment rate at a 26-year-high of 10.2%, more Americans are hunting for, and landing, work overseas, according to staffing companies and executive search firms.

Maintaining a comfortable lifestyle while working in Russia is difficult for many foreigners, but the ease of making new friends among the locals could sweeten the pill for many. According to HSBC’s expat experience report, Russia ranks two points from the bottom in terms of quality of life among the 26 countries surveyed, but it places fourth in terms of making new friends, especially among locals.

A recent survey of multinational companies found that the use of short-term expatriate assignments is increasing among 46.8% of respondents. ORC Worldwide’s 2009 Survey of Short-term International Assignment Policies found that Asia-Pacific is the region experiencing the highest increase in the number of short-term (3-12 months) assignees, followed by Western Europe, North America and Central/Eastern Europe.

Polska nie jest krajem popularnym wśród imigrantów – w 2008 roku obywatele innych państwstanowili jedynie 0,15% ogółu mieszkańców naszego kraju. Mimo, że cudzoziemcy nie są licznązbiorowością, to ich obecność na polskim rynku pracy wymaga odpowiednich przepisów i regulacji.

We have become a nation of nomads. Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that over half a million UK citizens have emigrated since 2006, with 158,000 of us packing up last year alone. Should it continue, migration on this scale won't have been seen since the period after the First World War, when the British government assisted migration of its citizens to the countries of the Commonwealth.

Employees in Europe receive the most generous statutory holiday allowances in the world according to data released by Mercer. However, taking public holidays into account, employees in Lithuania and Brazil have the potential to access the most time off work. The data comes from Mercer’s 2009 Worldwide Benefit and Employment Guidelineswhich provides data about global working practices and regulations. The report analyzes both the minimum number of days for statutory holiday that companies must provide to staff, as well as the number of public holidays in over 40 countries. The following comparison is based on statutory entitlements for an employee working five days a week, with 10 years’ service.

Ever wondered what it would be like to live in Paris? Immersing yourself in an expat blog is one of the best ways to find out. It seems that every year a fresh crop of bloggers has arrived on the electronic scene to share the ecstasies and agonies of life abroad. Because their lives often include a lot of food and fun, expat blogs are also a great way to learn about the local happenings. I've selected my current favorites (not including my own), and invite you to add your personal picks in the comments.

As many companies in Russia have resorted to job cuts over the past twelve months to stay afloat, foreign workers were hit hard. More than two thirds of expats who came to Russia to work have lost their jobs.

Despite the global financial crisis, research conducted by DSL Exhibitions found that 62 percent of property buyers in the UAE were positive about the region's economic future over the next 20 years.

When applying for a visa, you will do it through the country of your destination and not through the United States, so this process may be your first introduction into the new culture that you are visiting or moving to. The laws, organization of paperwork, etc. can be confusing and hard to work with. To avoid frustrations start as early before your departure as possible and a Diet Coke (or the stress-reliever of your choice).

Tokyo has knocked Moscow off the top spot to become the world’s most expensive city for expatriates, according to the latest Cost of Living Survey from Mercer.

W dniu 1 sierpnia 2009 r. weszła w życie Umowa między Rządem Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej a Rządem Kanady o wspieraniu mobilności młodych obywateli. Począwszy od tej daty młodzi Polacy mogą nie tylko podróżować po Kanadzie, uzupełniać swoje wykształcenie w instytucjach szkolnictwa wyższego, zdobywać doświadczenie zawodowe oraz pogłębiać znajomość języków, kultury i wiedzy o społeczeństwie Kanady, ale również podejmować okazjonalną pracę. W dniu wjazdu na terytorium Kanady otrzymają oni zezwolenie na pracę na okres legalnego pobytu.

Established as a British trading colony in 1819, the history and fortunes of Singapore, an island-state located between Malaysia and Indonesia, have been closely intertwined with migrants and migration. Today, Singapore's population of almost 4.5 million includes citizens of Malaysian, Chinese, and Indian descent as well as thousands of foreign workers from across Southeast and South Asia. Not surprisingly, the country has four official languages: English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil.

The U.A.E government is considering implementing new employment legislation that will improve foreign workers’ labor conditions and protect their rights.

Westerners in Japan do not tend to assimilate to anywhere near the degree that foreigners do in the West. There are two predominant reasons why. The first is that because of the culture of social obligation, the joys of mainstream Japanese life are felt to be less than totally enviable. The second is that the negative forms of discrimination that exist for the noncitizen population are more than compensated for by an impressive array of positives.

A May 25, 2009 ruling by the European Union Council has eased the conditions of entry and residence in the European Union (EU) for third-country employees with high qualifications.