Housing crisis repels foreign workers, survey reveals

Dublin’s deepening housing crisis is driving away more foreign workers than ever before, a damning new survey suggests.

Wed, 21 Nov, 2018 - 05:30

By Nick Bramhill

Dublin’s deepening housing crisis is driving away more foreign workers than ever before, a damning new survey suggests.

A combination of soaring rents and stagnant housing stock has resulted in the capital being ranked the worst city in the world in which to find affordable accommodation.

The just-published Expat City Ranking 2018 has placed Dublin in 72nd position out of 72 major global cities in its ‘finance & housing’ sub-section.

Further analysis of the figures reveals that nine in 10 foreign workers in Dublin feel local housing is not affordable - compared to only 44% globally.

Aside from housing, 70% of expats in Dublin are also unhappy with the high cost of living, compared to just 37% of respondents across all cities in the survey.

The extensive Munich-based study by InterNationsm which involved over 18,000 respondents ranked Dublin in 66th position, overall.

The overall ranking was determined by the results of over two dozen sub-sections.

Although Dublin’s ranking, marginally ahead of both Paris and London, is near the foot of the table, Ireland’s capital still performed strongly in some areas — most notably for career opportunities which saw it placed third in the world, only beaten by first-placed Prague and Houston, Texas.

The capital also scored highly for local friendliness, with nearly eight in 10 respondents saying they have been made to feel welcome in their adopted city.

Commenting on Dublin’s poor overall performance in this year’s survey, the company’s CEO Malte Zeeck said: “Expats in Dublin are less than satisfied with life in the city, putting the Irish capital in the bottom 10 of the Expat City Ranking.

“The result is mainly due to the city’s poor performance regarding the quality of urban living, as well as finance and housing.

Once again, Dublin performs well in terms of local friendliness, with 78% of expats rating the general friendliness of the city’s residents favourably, whilst just 62% say the same globally.

“This is especially noteworthy when we look at its UK counterpart, London, where barely half the residents, just 53%, consider the local residents to be friendly.”

Taipei in Taiwan and Singapore were voted this year’s top cities for expats while, at the other end of the table, the sprawling Saudi Arabian cities of Riyadh and Jeddah were ranked the least desirable urban destinations.

With 3.3m members in 420 cities around the world, InterNations is the largest global community and information site for people who live and work abroad.

There are more than 20,000 members of InterNations in Ireland, with 16,000 based in Dublin.