A quarter of international residents polled in Luxembourg said the pandemic had impacted their relocation plans, compared to 37% globally, according to the InterNations survey Shutterstock

A quarter of international residents polled in Luxembourg said the pandemic had impacted their relocation plans, compared to 37% globally, according to the InterNations survey Shutterstock

The Expat Insider 2021 survey from InterNations polled over 12,000 international workers in 59 countries around the world about living and working abroad.

The Sars-CoV-2 pandemic, which significantly interrupted global travel and world economies had a limited impact on Luxembourg respondents’ general health (2%), education (2%), or business travel (2%).

The biggest pandemic change mentioned was to social life, impacting one out of three expats in Luxembourg (33%), followed by personal travel (27%) and work or business (17%).

Over two thirds of respondents from Luxembourg (69%) used the local news as a source of information on covid- 19 and related regulations, higher than the global average (47%). A lower share said they stayed up to date through social media, compared to expats worldwide (27% vs. 40% globally). Lastly, the vast majority of respondents in Luxembourg (82%) said they were satisfied with the official communication regarding covid-19 (vs. 66% globally).

Bottom 10 for cost of living

In other findings, expats ranked Luxembourg in the top 5 for health and wellbeing and bottom 10 for cost of living and personal happiness, a new index shows.

Graphic: Expat Insider 2021

Overall, Luxembourg came in at twentieth, with expats happiest with their working life (14) and quality of life (15), while the country landed in fifth place for health and wellbeing, and twelfth for both safety and security and digital life satisfaction. Less favourable was the ranking for personal finance (36) and ease of settling in (37). The pricy country also ranked in the bottom ten for cost of living (55). In all, 57% of people polled rated the cost of living negatively, despite more than half of respondents earning over $75,000 per year. One interviewee commented: “you are underpaid, unless you work in the financial sector.”

Global ranking

Overall, Taiwan, Mexico, and Costa Rica were ranked the best expat destinations worldwide, scoring best for the ease of settling in and good personal finances. Meanwhile, Kuwait, Italy, and South Africa all perform poorly in the working abroad index. Additionally, Kuwait was rated the hardest country for expats to feel at home in, Italy was ranked the worst for personal finances, and expats in South Africa said that they did not feel safe.

Some 12,420 people representing 174 nationalities and living in 59 countries participated in the survey. InterNations did not indicate the sample size for Luxembourg or the date the survey was carried out.