New Delhi: Bengaluru is the best city in India for remote workers, a new study has revealed.
Conducted by remote working portal WorkMotion, the study ranks Melbourne as “most accessible and attractive for remote workers”. The other cities that rank among the top five are Montreal, Sydney, Wellington and Prague.
“Study uses data to reveal which global cities are most accessible and attractive for remote workers by assessing factors related to employment compliance, living costs, infrastructure and liveability, in addition to showing current location trends,” WorkMotion said.
Co-founded by Carsten Lebtig, Felix Steffens and Karim Zaghloul, WorkMotion is an online platform that aims to facilitate companies to hire workers remotely worldwide without needing a “local branch”.
“At WorkMotion, we help companies overcome international compliance hurdles to hire people based anywhere in the world. With office work no longer the default option, an increasing number of employees are able to relocate to destinations that best suit their lifestyles while working remotely, or seek opportunities at foreign businesses,” the company stated in its study.
How the study was conducted
As part of its study, WorkMotion revealed an extensive methodology in which cities were scored out of 100, under 17 different “factors” divided into four broader categories — remote working compliance, cost of living, civic infrastructure, and liveability.
For some of these “factors”, a high score is considered better while for others a lower score aids the city’s ranking.
In order to account for this difference, WorkMotion revealed its score calculation method, inverting scores where low value is better and using a min-max normalisation formula.
“The final score was determined by calculating the sum of the weighted average score of all of the indicators,” WorkMotion added.
While Bengaluru scored an average of 57.57, Melbourne scored a perfect 100, with Montreal scoring 98.20 and Dubai, ranked 80th, scoring 50.
How did Bengaluru fare
The cities were ranked on the basis of the ease of corporate compliance for employing workers remotely, the flexibility of the legal system, and availability of a remote worker visa. Bengaluru ranked 77th among the top 80 cities in the world.
Bengaluru scored just 58.10 on ease of compliance, 52 on legal flexibility and does not have a remote worker visa available, the study said.
Cost of living score was judged on tax rates, cost of housing, access to housing, as well as the general affordability of living in that city.
Bengaluru scored 70.39 and 76.86 on tax rates and access to housing, respectively, but scored 96.66, second-highest in the world on cost of housing and a perfect score on affordability of living.
By far the most detailed category in the study is civic infrastructure, measuring political stability, safety & security, equality for minorities and LGBT+ people, gender equality, quality of public education, and access to healthcare.
On these “factors”, Bengaluru’s score was varied, ranking near or at the bottom on access to healthcare, political stability, public education and minority and gender equality, scoring 50, 58.70, 68.62, 88.52 and 79.60, respectively. However, the city ranked slightly better on LGBT+ equality (62nd) and safety & security (70th), scoring 93.59 and 74.81, respectively.
Under the liveability category, the cities were scored on residents’ happiness levels, the cultural attractions available in the city, and the quality of public transport and mobility.
Bengaluru ranked 74th on happiness and 79th on cultural attractions and mobility.
Also read: Cheap hotels, many eateries make Delhi 3rd-best capital city in the world for tourists: Survey