Expats working in Shanghai are likely to be paid more than local employees get in pay and benefits, but less than the full expat salary packages in other cities in the world, a recent survey shows.

Nearly three-quarters of employers in Shanghai offer a "living allowance" package to expats, the highest percentage of three cities surveyed.

Only 45 percent of the respondents in London said that expatriates in their companies would get a living allowance while only 40 percent would in Denver, the United States.

The survey was conducted by Worldwide ERC, a global workforce mobility association, among human resources and mobility professionals from 115 companies in Shanghai, London and Denver.

It was published at the association's annual conference which opened in Shanghai on Tuesday.

The survey reported that most of the companies surveyed in the three cities anticipated that more employees would be paid wages and expenses closer to local rates as their companies expanded over the next five years.

But the process would take longer in Asia and Europe than in the United States, the survey reported.

About 40 percent of the respondents in Asia and Europe reported that their companies were more likely to pay an employee local wages and allowances only after they had been on assignment for five or more years.

The figure compared to just 23 percent of the companies in the United States.

Shanghai now has more than 70,000 expatriates and another 70,000-plus returned overseas Chinese working in the city, the Shanghai Personnel Bureau said on Tuesday.

(Shanghai Daily March 19, 2008)