Welcome to Mobility Minute, a newsletter published every Friday by Worldwide ERC® for the benefit of members and the global mobility and relocation industry. Here's a quick glimpse of what you'll find in this week’s issue:
Research on the Future of Remote Work and Employee Mobility
2022 Public Policy Quarterly Update
Worldwide ERC Foundation Charity Updates
Note: If you receive Mobility Minute weekly, please forward this issue to colleagues in the workforce mobility industry. If this was shared with you, click here to subscribe and gain access to the archives.
Report: Companies Are Embracing Employee Mobility More Today Than Before the Pandemic
Worldwide ERC®just released “The Evolution of Remote Work,” our latest look at what’s happening with flexible work arrangements in the wake of the pandemic—and the results since the 2021 survey might surprise you. Flexible work arrangements remain a powerful corporate tool for talent recruitment and retention, and they are driving greater employee mobility. The new report also shows that full-time remote work has become less common than employees working in an office-based, hybrid capacity.
Based on a survey of more than 500 global HR and corporate mobility leaders, we found five main ways mobility has evolved. Two are shared in the infographics below. Learn more about those and three others in the full report.
The Worldwide ERC® Foundation for Workforce Mobility Is Making Moves
The Worldwide ERC® Foundation for Workforce Mobility continues to energize the global community through charitable giving and realizing its vision that all communities touched by global mobility are actively aware of, inspired by, and engaged in its philanthropic efforts worldwide. “The Worldwide ERC Foundation is the heart of our community. It brings people together for good work,” says Lynn Shotwell, CEO and president of Worldwide ERC.
Commercial real estate investors are increasingly taking ESG into account as they confront financial risks associated with ESG factors, especially climate change. Real estate firms are facing demands from investors who want to understand the exposure of companies with large real estate holdings to, for example, flooding and the increasing prevalence and severity of adverse weather events. — CFO
For lower-income Americans, the days of the labor shortage—in which jobs were abundant and everyone was quitting for higher pay—are numbered. Job openings are ticking down, unemployment claims are ticking up, and inflation remains near record levels, wiping out much of their earnings gains. — Business Insider
Almost five months after the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates to cool off the economy and to bring down the highest inflation since the early 1980s, the labor market report showed that the nation’s central bank has more work to do. Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers rose by 5.2% over the past year, which hints at the sort of wage-price spiral that the Fed is determined to prevent. — The Washington Post
With the majority of Americans (58%) still wanting the number of people coming to the U.S. from other countries to either increase or be kept as is, the majority also continue to believe that immigration is a good thing for the country. Seven in 10 take this position, while 24% say immigration is a bad thing for the country. — Gallup
2022 Public Policy Quarterly Update
Worldwide ERC® is providing its members with a series of quarterly reports on public policy issues important to workforce mobility. The reports outline rotating key mobility policy issues and the recent involvement of Worldwide ERC on those issues. The primary areas of policy interest include immigration, reinstatement of the moving tax deduction and reduction, e-notarization, and data privacy and security.
Public Policies Important to Worldwide ERC
The policy priorities of Worldwide ERC are determined through our government affairs structure, beginning with the four Public Policy Forums, which cover the areas of global immigration, global tax, global compliance, and North American real estate. Worldwide ERC recently created Working Groups for each of the Forums comprised of small groups of Worldwide ERC members with expertise and experience within one of the respective issue areas. The Worldwide ERC Government Affairs Committee, comprised of the chairs and vice-chairs of the Forums as well as four at-large members, has oversight over the policy recommendations of the Forums.
Synergy Global Housing has announced the addition of new apartments in Wembley Park, an exciting North London neighborhood. Synergy has invested substantially into its operational growth across London, Dublin, and Munich, and recently hired a Director of Development—Nigel Carter—to add new properties and partnerships in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and Asia.
If you have news about Worldwide ERC® members and our industry, send your updates tomobility@worldwideerc.org.
On Tap
2022 Global Workforce Symposium, 25–28 October 2022 — GWS2022 will be the largest mobility industry gathering, attracting over 1,000 attendees seeking connections and expert knowledge focused on domestic and international moves, immigration policies, tax issues, cutting-edge technology trends, hot topics, and much more. Join us this fall as we build the game plan for how mobility responds. Learn more about the 2022 Global Workforce Symposium.
Worldwide ERC® Member-Only LinkedIn® Groups: Benchmark with the best in the industry with three of our member-only LinkedIn® groups: Young Professionals Member-Only Forum, Corporate/HR Benchmarking Member-Only Forum, and our Member-Only Open Forum. This is your private, member-only community to exchange questions, answers, industry announcements, and sharing ideas with other relocation professionals! Click here to join to learn more about each Forum group.
Most of the world’s countries are now open to visitors from the United States, which lifted its testing requirement for inbound travelers in June. Some countries that closed their borders to tourists at the beginning of the pandemic have done away entirely with requirements for travelers, including the United Kingdom, Iceland, and Sweden.
Where You Can Travel This Summer
Travel is continuing to increase as more countries dropped restrictions and, in the United States, travel is approaching pre-pandemic levels, according to Transportation Security Administration checkpoint metrics. With the summer travel season underway, even more countries are dropping restrictions. Here is where you can now travel without restrictions:
Earlier this month, Australia, which had fully closed to foreign tourists in the first years of the pandemic, dropped its vaccination requirements for visitors, having already dropped its testing rule.
Last week, the British Virgin Islands dropped all of its testing requirements and said arriving travelers would no longer be screened for the coronavirus.
As of Aug. 1, France no longer has COVID-19 entry requirements for any travelers. Travelers can enter with no testing or vaccine requirements.
Worldwide ERC®, P.O. Box 41990, Arlington, VA 22204, United States, 1-703-842-3400
