Switzerland is safe and has a high quality of life with excellent schools, but it is overpriced and unfriendly, according to a global survey of expats.
The alpine nation continues to tumble down the rankings in the 67-country Expat Insider survey, “The World Through Expat Eyes”, published on Monday. Overall, Switzerland has fallen from fourth place in 2014 to 14th in 2015 to 31st this year.
This drop of 17 places made it one of the online survey’s “biggest losers”, on par with Malaysia and ahead of only Hong Kong, Indonesia and the UAE.
Switzerland fell in all six criteria: quality of life, ease of settling in, working abroad, personal finance, cost of living and family life (it actually stayed in 30th position in this category).
Neighbouring Austria in eighth place as the highest-ranked European country, ahead of Germany (17th) and France (41st). Southern neighbour Italy, suffering from a struggling economy, low job security and political instability, came 59th, among the bottom ten.
The United States came 26th (down from fifth in 2014) and Britain 33rd (down from 21stin 2014), although the survey was carried out before Britain decided to leave the European Union in June. That vote has led to increased political instability and concerns about job security.
The highest-placed African country, Uganda, came 25th.
Gulf States were deemed the least desirable places to be an expat, with Kuwait getting the wooden spoon. However, Italy and Greece also made it into the bottom ten.
Expat Insider survey 2016
More than 14,000 respondents representing 174 nationalities and 191 countries or territories took part and had their say on moving, living and working abroad.
For a country to be featured in the indices and consequently in the overall ranking, a sample size of at least 50 survey participants per country was necessary. The only exception to this is the Family Life Index, where a sample size of more than 30 respondents raising children abroad was required. In 2016, 67 and 45 countries respectively met these requirements.
The online survey ran from February 18 through March 13 and was promoted through the InterNations website.
(Source: Expat Insider)
