Dubai wages are better than Doha, but worse than...

Dubai - A study reveals that workers in Luxembourg have the highest purchasing power, almost three times greater than those in Dubai.

Workers in Dubai have much lower purchasing power than their peers in New York City, Paris and London, according to the findings in the "Prices and Earnings" study published by the bank UBS.
The study reveals that the workers in Luxembourg have the highest purchasing power, almost three times greater than those in Dubai, and more than 10 times greater than those in Jakarta, the city with the lowest purchasing power among all the surveyed cities. Doha's purchasing power, is found to be slightly lower than that of Dubai.
The study compares the prices, wages and domestic purchasing power of workers in 71 cities worldwide.
These are the top 40 cities, ranked on their domestic purchasing power (based on net hourly pay)
1. Luxembourg: 134.3
2. Zurich: 130.5
3. Geneva: 127.5
4. Miami: 122.1
5. Los Angeles: 116.0
6. Nicosia:  106.7
7. Vienna: 106.5
8. Sydney: 104.2
9. Munich: 104.2
10. Montreal: 102.6
11. Frankfurt: 102.0
12. Berlin: 101.9
13. Chicago: 101.1
14. New York City: 100.0
15. Lyon: 96.9
16. Paris: 92.4
17. Dublin: 91.4
18. Brussels: 90.9
19. Toronto: 89.1
20. Oslo: 86.6
21. London: 85.3
22. Helsinki: 84.5
23. Stockholm: 82.9
24. Auckland: 82.9
25. Amsterdam: 81.7
26. Rome: 80.8
27. Tokyo: 80.0
28. Manama: 68.6
29. Madrid: 84.0
30. Barcelona:  81.8
31. Hong Kong: 67.8
32. Milan: 75.3
33. Johannesburg: 70.5
34. Dubai: 56.8
35. Tel Aviv: 64.6
36. Sao Paulo: 58.4
37. Copenhagen: 104.8
38. Seoul: 57.9
39. Ljublijana: 62.2
40. Doha: 49.7
 
Working time required to buy an iPhone 6
The survey also features the time an average worker must work to earn enough to purchase an iPhone 6, 16 GB. It turns out, in Dubai, you need to work for 55.8 hours to be able to afford an iPhone 6, compared to only 24 hours in New York City, 42.2 hours in Paris and 41.2 hours in London. In Doha, you need to work 69.9 hours to buy an Iphone 6. 
"Workers in cities such as Zurich and New York City require on average less than three days on the job to be able to grab an Iphone 6. In contrast, workers in Kiev must labor, on average, over 13 weeks to earn enough for the same phone. Workers in Buenos Aires cannot access official markets to purchase the iPhone 6 locally," the report states.
Here's the complete list of surveyed cities, showing the working time required to buy McDonald's Big Mac, 1 kilo of bread, 1 kilo of rice and an iPhone 6.

Source: UBS
nilanjana@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai