Commentary
Temasek Review, 25 Aug 2009
Low relative purchasing power of wages
This is calculated in the UBS study by using a specific, highly uniform product that is available everywhere in the same quality, and then calculate how long an employee has to work to afford it in each city.
For the purpose of this article, the iPod nano (with 8 GB of storage) is used.
An average wage earner is Zurich and New York can buy a nano from an Apple store after nine hours of work. A Singapore worker will have to work three times longer after 27.5 hours.
The figures for selected Asia-Pacific cities are as follows: Sydney (9.5hrs), Tokyo (12hrs), Auckland (16hrs), Hong Kong (19hrs), Seoul (22hrs) and Taipei (23.5hrs). Again we came in last among the 4 Asian Tigers.
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