Taxis, restaurants and rent make London most expensive place to live
London is the most expensive place to live, according to a study of the world's largest cities.
Although London is relatively cheap for food and clothing, it is most expensive for taxis, trains and restaurants. And accommodation is at least double what it costs in most comparable cities, excluding New York.
Despite this, Londoners do not take home salaries to compensate, with gross earnings coming sixth behind cities such as New York, Zurich and Copenhagen. The research published yesterday was carried out by UBS, the banking group, which looked at wages, costs and purchasing power in 71 cities earlier this year. The study, published every three years, revealed that London has risen to the most expensive city while New York and Hong Kong have dropped back.The most expensive cities including rent were London, New York, Oslo, Tokyo and Zurich. The costliest excluding rent were Oslo, London, Copenhagen, Zurich, Tokyo and Geneva.
Londoners also fared poorly on purchasing power achieved with average net hourly pay. Workers in 12 cities enjoyed at least 10 per cent more purchasing power than Londoners, while those in Zurich, Geneva, Dublin, Los Angeles and Luxembourg enjoyed at least 20 per cent more. The research also revealed how long it takes workers to earn enough money to pay for a Big Mac. This showed people in London earned a burger after 16 minutes, similar to New York (13 minutes) and Paris (21 minutes). However, those in poorer cities such as Sofia (69 minutes), Nairobi (91 minutes) and Jakarta (86 minutes) must work much longer. Employees worked more than 2,000 hours each year in a quarter of the countries listed, with those in Seoul heading the list at more than 2,300. This was over 50 per cent more hours worked than in Paris, which came in lowest at 1,500 hours. London came in around the middle at 1,780.
Price comparisons are used widely by companies determining salaries for employees overseas.
最新调查：伦敦生活成本全球最高
一项针对全球大城市的研究表明，伦敦是全球生活成本最高的城市。
尽管伦敦在食品和服装方面相对便宜，但它在出租车、火车和旅馆方面是最贵的。除了纽约，伦敦的住宿成本至少是其它大城市的两倍。
尽管如此，伦敦人并未挣到足以弥补的薪水，其总收入排名仅为第六位，落后于纽约、苏黎世和哥本哈根等城市。这项研究每三年发布一次，最新报告已于昨日公布，是由瑞银集团(UBS)在今年早些时候负责进行的，研究内容包括全球71个城市的薪资、生活成本和购买力。研究表明，伦敦已经跃升为全球生活成本最高的城市，而纽约和香港的排名则有所回落。包括租金在内，生活成本最高的城市有伦敦、纽约、奥斯陆、东京和苏黎世。不包括租金在内，生活成本最高的城市有奥斯陆、伦敦、哥本哈根、苏黎世、东京和日内瓦。
以每小时平均净工资衡量，伦敦人的购买力也相对不济。12个城市的工人在购买力方面比伦敦人高10%以上，而苏黎世、日内瓦、都柏林、洛杉矶和卢森堡的工人，其购买力至少比伦敦人高20%。研究还揭示了工人购买一个“巨无霸”汉堡(Big Mac)所需的工作时间。伦敦人工作16分钟即可买一个“巨无霸”汉堡，与之比较接近的是纽约（13分钟）和巴黎（21分钟）。然而，在索非亚、内罗毕和雅加达等较贫穷的城市，工人必须工作长得多的时间，分别为69分钟、91分钟和86分钟。在所有受调查城市中，四分之一城市的工人每年工作超过2000小时，其中汉城居于榜首，其工人每年工作超过2300小时。这比巴黎工人的工作时间高出50%以上――巴黎工作时间最短，每年为1500小时。伦敦位于中游，为1780小时。
价格对比被企业广泛采用，用来确定海外雇员的薪资水平。
