Tue, Feb 12, 2008
my paper
Expats coming to S'pore work on shorter stints
SINGAPORE could see more expatriates coming here on shorter stints as international companies find that overseas postings are becoming more costly and time-consuming, says accounting and audit firm KPMG in its latest survey.
It polled a total of 348 human resource executives worldwide, and found that 49 per cent of them felt that international assignment programmes "take too much time and effort to administer", up slightly from the 48 per cent seen a year earlier, The Business Times reported yesterday.
Forty per cent of the respondents also thought such international programmes are "more generous than they need to be", compared with 38 per cent who felt the same way in 2006.
Commenting on the latest results from the 2007 KPMG Global Assignment Policies and Practices Survey, KPMG executive director Ooi Boon Jin suggests that firms with regional or international operations "should look more closely at the commercial needs of an international assignment and the expected returns on investment".
He said: "The benefits of these assignments can then be maximised if proactive planning is done well ahead of the relocation."
Given the respondents' views on overseas stints, it is therefore not surprising that more companies now prefer sending international assignees on short-term work trips, with 80 per cent of those surveyed using this option.
Said Mr Ooi: "The increasing number of short-term assignments requires companies to take a look at their international assignment programmes as traditional long-term expatriate policies often fail to adequately support the needs of the business or assignee."
As these firms try to manage their international assignment costs more effectively, he says, this could result in more assignments into Singapore "which are short-term in nature, typically less than a year where expatriate families can remain back home".
Based on another KPMG survey released last September, 38 per cent of corporate respondents expect their use of
short-term assignments to increase in the next 18 months.
This latest study also found that mid-sized firms now increasingly turn to outsourcing to manage their international assignment programmes.
Then shouldn't you be happy..... less FT around.....
Natural progression, with the relaxing of borders companies prefer to hire the foreign labor already in the country and avoid paying expatriate rates.