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WorkMotion.com, the Global Talent Operating System company, has released a study that analyses cities’ ability to compete in a global remote employment market, ranking 100 cities worldwide based on the concentration of local talent, local salary levels, and remote working infrastructure.
As a company that facilitates remote hires, WorkMotion decided to conduct the study in order to understand which cities have the most competitive talent in a range of careers that will increasingly become remote-first in the future.
The study is designed to draw attention to the importance of city-level and national governments having a strategy to ease remote work compliance regulations, increase English literacy and educate their citizens for the jobs of tomorrow.
“With a 140% rise in the number of people working from home since 2005, the employment landscape has changed and remote working is part of the new normal, with workers now having the ability to seek highly paid remote jobs with foreign employers,” comments Carsten Lebtig, Co-Founder and Managing Director of WorkMotion. “As a result, there is less pressure on city governments to attract new companies to their city, as their citizens can seek remote employment at companies based anywhere in the world. As such, the priority for cities must now be to educate and prepare their citizens so that they can compete for the careers of tomorrow, while bringing money into their local economies. We conducted this study in order to draw attention to the urgent need for cities to respond to the current changes in hiring practices and help equip their citizens to take full advantage of the new remote opportunities offered.”
Findings:
- In the digital marketing managers category, Buenos Aires ranks #1 for junior talent and London ranks #1 for senior talent.
- Dublin ranks highest for ease of compliance legislation, a measurement of how well local governments facilitate remote work, followed by Helsinki and Toronto in second and third.
- London has the most coworking spaces, with 334, followed by New York and Bangalore.
- For HR professionals, Buenos Aires tops the ranking for junior talent and Bangalore tops the ranking for senior talent.
- When it comes to cyber security experts, Bangalore scores highest for junior talent, while London ranks highest for senior talent.
- When it comes to data scientists, London scores highest for junior talent, while Bangalore ranks highest for senior talent.
- In the video game developers category, Buenos Aires ranks #1 for junior talent and Bangalore ranks #1 for senior talent.
- For developers, Seoul tops the ranking for junior talent and Bangalore tops the ranking for senior talent.
The table below reveals a sample of results for the top 10 cities for junior and senior-level digital marketing managers. All scores are out of 100, with 100 being the highest possible score and 50 being the lowest.
WorkMotion began the study by identifying a list of indicators that impact a city’s ability to cultivate a remote workforce, exploring the concentration of local talent, average junior and senior-level salaries and the existing remote work infrastructure. The researchers then shortlisted 100 cities for analysis according to their global significance and the reliability of available data.
Next, the researchers selected six different occupations to examine based on their ubiquity and their likelihood of becoming remote-first in the future:
- Developers / Programmers
- Data Scientists / Analysts
- Video Game Developers
- Digital Marketing Managers
- Cyber Security Professionals
- HR Managers
For the first category, Access to Talent, researchers considered the concentration of both junior and senior-level talent in each city to gain an understanding of which cities are home to the most specialists in each field and can benefit most from a move towards remote work policies.
Next, to analyse how location-based pay might influence future hiring decisions, they examined cities’ average junior and senior-level salaries for each profession. To allow for more direct comparison, the researchers also calculated the deviation from the average salary within the top-25 GPD countries.
To assess which cities have anticipated and are already cultivating a remote work environment, the researchers then considered the Remote Working Infrastructure in each city by considering the ease of compliance regulations, the number of coworking spaces and English proficiency.
To conclude, the researchers calculated an overall score for junior and senior-level talent based on access to talent, local salaries and remote working infrastructure. The resulting index reveals the cities most likely to benefit from the transition to remote-first working policies in the future, as well as those that are likely to lose out.
