Expatriates: companies are cutting back on costs
The crisis has not spared the expatriates. These work situations envied, long associated with numerous benefits in kind, tend to reduce to a trickle. As a result of depressed economic conditions, but not only. For fifteen years, companies have committed an evolution of their expatriation policies: fewer executives sent abroad, fewer benefits included in the "package", and more difficulties encountered by the expatriate his return to France … The status tends to lose its luster.
"The underlying trend is downward in the number of expatriates for the benefit of local cadres" confirms Paul Mercier, head of the Africa region at Michael Page Africa. Less expensive, these executives are also less difficult to find.Some areas of Africa or Asia excepted basins provide local jobs because of what fill the needs of enterprises at lower cost. "We are witnessing a competition between increasing local and expatriate" is also Claude Mulsant, CEO of Magellan Circle. Comparing the most unfavorable to the former.
Costly benefits
For if the expatriate benefit of all contracts under local law, this status also gives them several advantages, sometimes very expensive for the company.Notably, the "package" negotiated by the expatriate before his departure, may involve the payment of housing, schooling for children, the French social security in addition to the host … "With the crisis, companies have been particularly attentive to reduce costs, and therefore significantly reduced the benefits offered by the "package", "Analysis Paul Mercier. "The premiums have decreased, as the standard of housing available" confirms Claude Mulsant.
Jacques-Olivier Meyer, CEO of HR firm Intelfi International, also found that habits have changed. "The crisis has reflux number of expatriates in some areas, including Asia," noted he. And these returns have not always been without difficulties: "Some expats have found themselves pushed out on their return to France," remarked he.More generally, it is an average of expatriation down 5 to 3 years observed by Jacques-Olivier Meyer last ten years. Thus a fall in the number of expatriates who leave within three years after their stay (only 1 / 3 retentent experience). "The expatriates feel that conditions are less favorable than in the past," said he.
A threshold incompressible
So, farewell expats? Certainly not, answered Paul Mercier. For some functions can do without the experience and corporate culture of these executives preferred. "When the business is established, local officials can often replace expatriates. But to establish a subsidiary, a new factory or make an investment that requires export of know-how, the expatriate remains indispensable, "said Paul Mercier.Jacques-Olivier Meyer goes even further: "With the crisis we have reached an irreducible minimum. I do not see how the numbers could still be reduced …. "
