New Corporate Relocation Issues
The housing bubble and recession of the last few years have had profound impacts on corporate relocation issues. Companies are looking at different ways to deal with issues concerning new hires and people they transfer to facilities out of the country. Moving to a new place for a job is no longer just about pleasing family and the desirability of a new location, but has become increasingly about the inability of people to sell their existing homes. Many employees find themselves unable to accept new jobs across the country or overseas because they cannot deal with the financial burden of their existing home. Some companies alleviate this problem by purchasing the existing home from the transferred employee, but many don’t.
The current recession has also affected the reasoning used by corporations to relocate their operations. While the bottom line cost used to be the driving force, more and more companies are claiming that they relocate in order to take advantage of increased talent pools in new areas. This means that, instead of transferring old employees to new locations, companies will hire more new workers who are local to the companies new location. They will also hire those who are willing to pay for their own relocation costs. High unemployment has allowed companies to do this when they may have not been able to before.
Renting instead of buying housing has also become a more attractive option to workers trying to adapt to corporate relocations. Much of the time a worker will only be at a single location a year or less. Buying a home at each new place can be a huge headache and have very high financial costs. Many corporations who shuffle their employees around find that encouraging employees to rent can save them money and increase their productivity.