Although some of the highest salaries in the world are available in the US, the UK and Canada are emerging as attractive places to do business. These are the findings of a comparative analysis presented at the Petroleum Club in Houston, Texas, May 30. The presentation, hosted by the British Consulate-General and the Canadian Consulate-General, evaluated a number of countries for business appeal, concluding that the best opportunites are Canada and the UK.
The analysis took into account business costs such as labor, facilities, depreciation, financing/interest, transportation, utilities, non-income based tax, and income tax. These data were compared for Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK, and the US. Results varied for different business segments, with the US ranking strongest as a nation with businesses that fall into the category of low technology. Interestingly, for high-end technologies, the country of choice was Canada, which shows a cost advantage of 30.6% over the United States for businesses heavily involved in R&D.
For the sake of more immediate comparison, assessments were made among cities worldwide. The data indicate that Houston is quite competitive in the high-tech fields, despite the fact that the US on the whole ranks much lower over all, said Glenn Mair, Director of MMK Consulting, the company that prepared the report.
