If you’re an expatriate living in Africa, you don’t want to be posted in Victoria, Seychelles, which at position 14 takes the lead as the most expensive city on the continent.
But you do want to be living in Tunis in Tunisia (209) which ranks as the least expensive city in the region.
That’s according to the annual Cost of Living Survey undertaken by Mercer which finds that the majority of African countries have risen in ranking in terms of expenses and cost of living for expatriates.
Ndjamena, Chad (15), dropped four places from last year's ranking as the most expensive city while Lagos, Nigeria (18), rose seven places due to high cost of rent and high prices for groceries.
It was followed by Kinshasa, Democratic Reoublic of the Congo (24), which dropped two places.
Accra, Ghana, moved from 63 to 57, while Nairobi, Kenya, moved from 97 to 95 and Casablanca, Morocco, from 128 to 121.
Luanda, Angola (115) dropped significantly, moving from 26 in 2019 to 115, this year.
From a local point of view, Cape Town is ranked 187 this year, dropping from 180 last year while
Johannesburg is ranked 192, down from 185.
"The Covid-19 pandemic has created social and economic disruptions across the globe and Africa has not been an exception", said Didintle Kwape, associate consultant for career products at Mercer Africa.
"We're seeing a significant increase in the cost of living across cities and it's important for organisations to reassess their mobility programmes with a focus on the wellbeing of their employees."
Mercer's 26th Cost of Living Survey finds that specific factors such as currency fluctuations, cost inflation for goods and services, and instability of accommodation prices, are essential to determining the cost of expatriate packages for employees on international assignments.
In terms of global ranking, Hong Kong tops the list of most expensive cities for expats, followed by Ashgabat, Turkmenistan in second position.
Tokyo and Zurich remain in third and fourth positions, respectively, whereas Singapore is in fifth, down two places from last year.
New York City ranked sixth, moving up from ninth place.
Other cities appearing in the top 10 of Mercer's costliest cities are Shanghai (7), Bern (8), Geneva (9), and Beijing (10). The world's least expensive cities are Tunis (209), Windhoek (208), Tashkent and Bishkek, which tied to rank 206.
Mercer's survey is designed to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation strategies for their expatriate employees.
New York City is used as the base city for all comparisons and currency movements are measured against the US dollar.
The survey includes over 400 cities throughout the world; this year's ranking includes 209 cities across five continents and measures the comparative cost of more than 200 items in each location, including housing, transportation, food, clothing, household goods, and entertainment.
