Inflation remains to be the consistent driver of exchange rates this month along with a few new factors.

AIRINC is a global mobility consultancy, technology, and data company. But, sometimes, owing to our close partnerships with clients, we do work in mobility-adjacent areas like compensation, or broader HR initiatives.

Africa is a diverse and dynamic continent. As the activity in the region grows, more companies are sending assignees and needing data and information about African locations.

For those who like to organize their expenses, having a budget or a spendable amount is key. In the world of global mobility, the concept of spendable income is a central element for calculating the Cost-of-Living Allowance (COLA). As the Spendable increases, the COLA increases in the exact same proportion, and everything else remains equal.

South Africa had a rough July of civil protests, rioting, and looting. Lives were lost, shopping malls were robbed, shops, petrol stations, and even whole suburbs were burnt to the ground, leaving many without food, supplies, and medication.

While conducting housing surveys of South Africa in August, I was curious to gain a better understanding of the state of load shedding in the country. Back in May of this year, my colleague, Zach Rossignol, wrote about the scheduled blackouts as both a daily inconvenience and a hindrance to the South African economy.

I arrived in Cape Town during Stage 4 load shedding, when state-run energy company Eskom was conducting one of four scheduled two-hour blackouts. In Camps Bay, I passed expatriate quality homes along the water and saw that every home displayed a large security company sticker. I also noticed that, even during a blackout, electric fences were still buzzing.

This February I surveyed Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg, South Africa. After 30+ travel hours from Boston, I arrived in Cape Town eager to decompress in my hotel room. Once there, front desk staff informed me that I could not check in yet because the power was down. They explained that the typical length of a blackout is two hours and this one had started about a minute after my arrival.

When I was visiting Cape Town during my recent survey, it was hard to believe that a water crisis had threatened the city so severely in 2017 and 2018 that city residents faced water restrictions as low as fifty liters of water per-person-per-day.

AIRINC’s onsite Surveyors investigate topics of international interest, including hardship situations. My colleague, Yimkwan Tsang, wrote about the water crisis in Cape Town after her February 2018 survey. At that time, Cape Town was expected to run out of water as early as June. However, this event, known as Day Zero, kept getting pushed back.