Mumbai, the financial capital of India tops the list of cities with the longest annual working hours, in a report by the Swiss Bank UBS. The report says the average Mumbaikar works 3,314.7 hours a year. New Delhi is ranked 4th on the list. The capital city has the average employee working for 2,511.4 hours a year. The cost of living in Delhi is 40% that in New York if rent is included. Without rent, it would be 46%. According to UBS data, Delhiites' average earning and purchasing power are more than Mumbaikars.
Employees in Hanoi (2,691.4) and Mexico city (2,622.1) are placed second and third respectively in the list of earning levels with respect to annual working hours among the 77 cities surveyed. European cities such as Paris (ranked 75) and Rome (76) have almost half the annual working hours of the first 3 cities!
The UBS report also gives a sense of the number of hours one needs to work to afford certain luxury items and services. In spite of having the longest working hours, Mumbai is the last but one city on affordability of the latest Apple products. Mumbaikars need to work 918 hours to afford an iPhone X, while New Yorker needs to work for just 54 hours to afford them. Delhites need to work 804 hours to purchase the iPhone X and 91 minutes to buy a big mac burger. Services like haircut are economical in Mumbai. For a haircut of men, it is 228 minutes of work against 128 minutes of work of New Yorker.
The list also includes annual vacation days of cities around the world. Riyadh, Moscow, St Petersburg, Barcelona and Doha are the top 5 cities on the list. Employees in Riyadh took as many as 37 days of vacation annually. People in New Delhi spend 21 days a year on vacation, which is twice that of the people in Mumbai. Los Angeles, Beijing, Hanoi and Lagos are cities with the shortest vacation time.
UBS collected 75,000 data points in its survey on the prices of 128 goods and services, and earnings in 15 professions in 77 cities worldwide. According to the report, Zurich is the most expensive place to live in, while Cairo is the cheapest. Gross earnings in Geneva are the highest, whereas New Delhi, Mumbai, Cairo are the 3 lowest. Purchasing Power of the people in Los Angeles is the most, wih Lagos being the last. Those in Hong Kong need to work for just 12 minutes to buy a Big Mac burger, and 75 hours to afford an iPhone X. Nairobians needs to work for 577 hours to buy the latest Apple phone.