Forbes has named Auckland city as one of the best places to have a bit of fun while also earning a living.
Tāmaki Makaurau is the only non-European place in the top ten, coming in at number five out of 128 major cities on the planet.
The big business publication was inspired to rank all the urban centres after 54% of 1,175 British workers they surveyed said they “would accept a lower-paid job in exchange for a better work-life balance.”
Scandinavia is the spot to be, with cities in Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Denmark holding the other six places in the top seven.
Our City of Sails ranked so high (overall score of 62.7) thanks to its “relaxed and friendly atmosphere, making it a comfortable and enjoyable place to live and work,” Forbes wrote.
“The average employee works 26.3 hours weekly, meaning residents are able to enjoy the city’s rejuvenating environment and unwind after work.”
With no mention of the frustrating traffic, especially around school hours, it's tough to know if it's a worthy ranking, but the city's number of parks, amount of sunshine hours, and low unemployment rate do make a good argument.
Rankings for their work-life balance index take into account the cities ranking on the ‘World Happiness’ and ‘Gender Inequality’ indexes, as well as ‘average working hours’, ‘minimum legal annual leave’, ‘property price to income ratio’, ‘proportion of remote and hybrid working vacancies’, ‘maternity leave policy’, ‘parks and nature reserves per capita’, ‘unemployment rate’, and ‘sunlight hours’.
Each city was given a score out of 100 based on these factors.
Forbes' Top Ten places to live for work-life balance:
- Copenhagen, Denmark (70.5)
- Helsinki, Finland (65.1)
- Stockholm, Sweden (64.8)
- Oslo, Norway (63.2)
- Auckland, New Zealand (62.7
- Gothenburg, Sweden (60.7)
- Reykjavik, Iceland (58.7)
- Vienna, Switzerland (58.5)
- Edinburgh, Scotland (57.1)
- Belfast, Northern Ireland (57)
