According to a new report published by financial services market research company Finaccord, the total number of expats worldwide grew to 50.5 million in 2013, after a compound annual increase of 2.4% since 2009. Finaccord forecasts that if this pattern is followed the number of expatriates worldwide could reach 56.8 million in 2017.
“Global mobility has increased significantly over the past decade and expatriates constitute a large and diverse market“, comments Tobias Schneider, a Consultant at Finaccord, “In order to fully describe this market, Finaccord has developed the first ever comprehensive and standardised analysis of expatriates worldwide that provides a consistent segmentation of expatriates. According to this analysis, the majority of expatriates in 2013 were classifiable as individual workers (73.6%) followed by students (8.8%), retired expatriates (3.7%) and corporate transferees (1.0%), with the balance of other expatriates (defined as non-employed spouses and children) making up the residual 12.8%.”
Across the 30 inbound countries taken into account for the report, the largest number of expats were moving to Saudi Arabia, followed by the United Arab Emirates and USA. On the other end of the scale, the smallest number of expats could be found in Poland. Meanwhile, it was also noted that India saw the largest number of expatriates leaving the country to work overseas, followed by China and the UK.
It was also reported by Brookfield in their Global Relocation Trends Survey (published June 2013 ) that the number of companies sending employees on international assignments was on the increase. According to Brookfield’s report the assignment of international employees is a cost saving measure that a higher number of companies are considering as well as placing more effort into employee retention in order to “preserve the significant investment made in these key employees.” says Scott Sullivan, executive vice-president of Brookfield.
In December it was revealed by careersinaudit.com that in a survey of 2,000 financial industry professionals 77% said they would be keen on the idea of moving abroad for work, with the top reasons being “better career progression”, “better work-life balance” and “better salary” (read our article about the report here).
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