Australian city ranks 8th best place in the world for work-life balance

Sydney has ranked the 8th best place for work-life balance in a survey of 100 cities, with Norway’s Oslo topping the list with a perfect score of 100 and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates ranking as the most overworked city.

Mobile access technology company Kisi looked at factors including work intensity and city livability, as well as quality of healthcare, cost of living and amount of time off when creating the list.

Kisi took more than 130 data points to 51 US metro areas and 49 major global cities that were shortlisted for analysis as global economic hubs to build this year’s list.

The top 10 were Oslo (Norway), Bern (Switzerland), Helsinki (Finland), Zurich (Switzerland), Copenhagen (Denmark), Geneva (Switzerland), Ottawa (Canada), Sydney (Australia), Stuttgart (Germany), and Munich (Germany).

CEO of Kisi Bernhard Mehl says the results reflect how resilient cities around the world have been at weathering mass disruption.

“Recent years have tested the support structures in place for employees around the world,” said Mehl.

“The ongoing stress and disruption brought about by the pandemic has been followed by war in Ukraine, contributing to global instability that will be felt for years to come.”

Some of the world’s most famous cities — known for being financial and corporate powerhouses — plunged down the list this year, with New York falling nearly 20 spots to 59, and London down seven places to 27.

For those looking for more remote work opportunities, Singapore, Washington DC and Austin topped the list with half of all jobs performed remotely.

Researchers found just one in 10 Sydney workers say they are overworked — the same rate as Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Buenos Aires in Argentina.

And yet looking at different metrics such as walkability and public transport access, several Australian cities have ranked among the worst-performing, according to a Lancet Global Health survey.

It found between 37% and 44% of the population in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide live in neighbourhoods with above-average walkability, a measure of how accessible amenities in a city are by walking.

“The worst performing cities for walkability were in high-income countries including the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. These cities were developed primarily in the 20th century under a car-centric planning model,” the report found.