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Labor market and recruitment >> Update >> News

18/06/10

No relation between popularity of event organizing cities and recruitment


Soccer doesn’t  really improves popularity of cities. Manchester scores the best on place 41

Rotterdam, June 18th 2010. The World Cup soccer is in it’s second week and the first supporters are celebrating the fact that their team will be attending the next round of the tournament. Countries can have different reasons to  suggest organizing an event like this. Think of the impact it has on their economy or a boost to their image. Referring to this last reason it is interesting to know whether cities that are known for organizing an event or being the home city of famous soccer clubs, are popular cities with respect to the interest of candidates’ willingness to consider working and living there.

The cities Cape Town and Johannesburg, currently organizing the World Cup soccer aren’t very popular. Respectively 0.7% and 0.5% of the international mobile workforce would move to either one of these cities. This is one of the results from the Global Talent Mobility Research, executed in July and August of 2009 by Intelligence Group and The Network. Can it be stated that the fact that organizing big events doesn’t affect its image as a potential new place to live, or is this just the case for South Africa?

Soccer cities

A closer look at the ranking of popular cities does show cities that are, at least to a part of the population, known for their soccer clubs or Olympic history. Highly ranked cities are Milan, Barcelona and Madrid where respectively 4.8%, 4.4% and 3.4% of the international mobile workforce would consider working. Unfortunately, these cities are also known for many other things as well, like their excellent climate and high level of culture. Therefore it is hard to conclude that these cities are popular because of their soccer performance.

On the other hand, there are also cities that are specifically known for their soccer clubs and less for other aspects, like Manchester, Glasgow, Sevilla and Liverpool. It can’t be stated that those cities are famous for big companies that are located there, (with the exception of Sevilla) they aren’t known for their great weather and they can’t be seen as cultural highlights. Of these cities, Manchester is the most popular with 1.4% of the people that would move to Manchester to start a career. Not only this percentage is low but also shows a disappointing ranking (in terms of popularity) as well, with the highest rank of 41 for Manchester and rankings over 100 for Sevilla and Glasgow. Therefore it can be stated that these typical soccer cities aren’t popular just like the case for the South African cities.

What is interesting is the popularity of the Olympic cities Vancouver and Montreal, which are locations that 3.2% and 3% of all international candidates would consider. Especially Vancouver will, at this point in time, experience advantages of the Winter Games of last year. Unfortunately, other Olympic cities, like Seoul, which aren’t known for many other reasons, don’t show high popularity.

Gender differences

It could be that, even though the impact is limited, male candidates show higher interests in the cities just mentioned compared to females. In the case of Manchester and Montreal it can be stated that men are slightly more interested in a job in these cities than women, with in both cases differences of one percent. To all other cities there can’t be concluded that men show higher preferences than women.

To conclude

Cities that try to increase their popularity in order to attract new people to work and live there, shouldn’t focus too much on organizing huge events like the World Cup soccer or the Olympic games. Our research showed that those cities or cities known for their soccer club don’t show high levels of popularity. It could be that, at least for a shorter period, popularity rises because people are more aware of the city, as could be the case with Vancouver, but in the long term, both for men and women, no relationship was found.

More information?

Geert-Jan Waasdorp

E: geert-jan@intelligence-group.nl

P: +31 10 280 90 10