Today’s The View from the Top show update is a nod to Charles Dickens’ famous novel.

Not long ago, when the results of AIRINC’s annual Mobility Outlook Survey (MOS) results were hot off the press, I held a joint webinar with German personnel association, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Personalführung to compare and contrast German/Austrian companies’ (GACs) responses with the rest of the world.

We all like to see a ranking. We like to know the best countries to live in; the most expensive cities; a listing of cities by their cost of living.

We invite you to a demonstration of our cost estimation tool. See how you can accurately plan employee assignments by understanding all costs, including: benefits, allowances and taxes. This webinar will be held in German.

When I moved back to Germany in 2019 after 15 years in the UK, one of the things I looked forward to the most was German Christmas markets.

As anyone who’s visited can confirm, 'Berlin is always worth a trip'!

Due to limited supply, rents have risen steadily despite a brief slump at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Supply is not expected to increase significantly until 2022 at the earliest. Demand for rentals in smaller towns outside of Cologne increased over the past year in response to rising rents and low supply in the city center.

When I joined AIRINC in December 2018, I started in our London office and had been living in the U.K. for 15 years at the time. I’m half German, half Indian, but grew up in Germany and went to school and university there with an Erasmus year in Paris, which to this day remains my favourite city in the world.

AIRINC is featured in the February edition of Mobility, a magazine that "examines the key issues affecting the global mobility workforce." This article appears on page 10, the "Tips and Trends" section, and is entitled Housing Markets on the Rise—and Not. 

Berlin rents increased over the past year. Demand is growing from new start-up companies and larger international companies establishing headquarters in Berlin. Construction of new rental units is underway but expected to take a few more years before appearing on the market.