As NashaGazeta.ch writes, a detailed breakdown of the annually published HSBC Expat Explorer ranking this time caused a lot of emotions in Switzerland. The fact that the Confederation entered the top ten most attractive countries for expats in 2015 is not surprising.
Foreign professionals working and living in the country for a long time once again highly praised Switzerland for decent salaries (annual income of almost a third of survey participants exceeds 200 thousand dollars), the overall state of the local economy, career opportunities, the achieved work-life balance, and some also for the opportunities for active recreation in the Alps with an ecological environment that 8 out of 10 survey respondents described as healthier than at home.
True, from the perspective of families on assignment, Switzerland is not the best place to live because of the high cost of living. Moreover, only a third of expats believe that it will be easy for a foreigner to make friends in this country. The listed advantages and disadvantages allowed the Confederation to take 10th place in the final Expat Explorer ranking in 2015 (recall that a year earlier it managed to top the list of desired destinations for expats).
The leaders in this survey, covering 39 countries, this time turned out to be Singapore (1st place), which received high marks in both financial and social categories, New Zealand (2nd place), slightly lagging in the economy but enticing with the opportunity to gain a unique experience, and Sweden (3rd place), attractive from almost all sides except for the hostility of the local population.
If Swedes, from the expats' point of view, turned out to be the most unfriendly, then the Swiss occupy second-to-last place in this category. As for the possibility of leading an active social life, foreigners placed the Confederation at the very bottom.
This fact, as it turned out, greatly surprised locals and even some foreigners working in Switzerland, reported the newspaper Le Matin. For instance, representative of the Association of Transnational Corporations (GEM) Arnaud Burgat is convinced that in a country with such cultural diversity, a foreigner will certainly not feel like on a desert island: if not the Swiss themselves, then compatriots living here will give a warm welcome to a newcomer.
The head of the Swiss Foreign Ministry's Presence Suisse division, which represents the Confederation abroad, Nicolas Bideau is generally satisfied with the final result of the ranking. In his opinion, the Helvetians may seem cold and unfriendly only at first glance, but once trust is established, you cannot find more loyal friends. "This does not always affect our image favorably in the short term, but the Swiss prefer reliability and do not value outward polish too much, that's all," explained Nicolas Bideau.
Let us add that the undisputed leader in friendliness of local population, from the expats' point of view, was Russia, which took 15th place in the final ranking (of course, lines from a song immediately come to mind: 'I will never forget a friend if I made friends with him in Moscow'). Although in terms of disposable income, healthcare, confidence in the future, and some other characteristics, the country ended up outside the second or even third ten, it is here that one should seek friends, believe the survey participants on which the latest Expat Explorer ranking was based.