Monday, September 12, 2011

Moving to Stockholm

Today we look at moving to Stockholm in Sweden from Mogadishu in Somalia. We highlight cost of living and other major differences likely to be experienced in our series of short blogs on moving between different international locations.
In Stockholm people speak Swedish. In Mogadishu people speak Somali, Arabic, Italian and English.

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden. Mogadishu is the largest city in Somalia and the nation's capital. The vast majority of Stockholmians work in the service industry, which accounts for roughly 85% of jobs in Stockholm. Stockholm is Sweden's financial centre. Mogadishu is the commercial and financial center of Somalia. Although the economy has recovered somewhat from the civil unrest, the Somali Civil War still presents many problems. The effective absence of government yields free trade without taxes or regulatory expenditures, but comes at the cost of civil society and infrastructure. Businesses have hired armed militias to provide security against gunmen, leading to a gradual reduction in open street violence. However, high levels of crime including frequent murders and occasional bombings are still rampant in the city.

The overall cost of living rank in Stockholm is 35 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with high cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Mogadishu to Stockholm will experience a change in cost of living of 48.3%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Stockholm is ranked as a minimal hardship location with a hardship index of 10% compared to Mogadishu with a hardship index of 40% which is an extreme hardship location.

Source: Cost of Living Stockholm Sweden as at July 2011.

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