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AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar
Big Mac Index

This is how long you have to work to buy a Big Mac in Dublin

Financial firm UBS have released a list of the world’s most expensive cities to live in.

NEW FIGURES HAVE been released showing how much labour it will take you to buy a Big Mac around the world.

In Dublin it will take 15 minutes, the same as in Toronto, Paris, and the Slovenian capital city of Ljubljana.

Hong Kong is the city that require the least graft, with workers able to earn the price of a Big Mac after only 9 minutes.

These figures come as part of the annual ‘Big Mac index’ produced by global financial firm UBS.

Is Ireland actually that expensive?

The data produced aims to paint a cohesive picture of cost of living internationally.

It uses McDonald’s Big Mac and the Apple iPhone to measure the relative differences as these two products are, “the same quality and nature whether bought in Doha or Rio de Janeiro.”

In terms of the most expensive city to live in, New York came out as number one.

It was followed in second and third positions by the Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva.

expensive cities UBS UBS

Dublin came in as the 21st most expensive city in the world to live in, more expensive than Sweden’s Stockholm but less expensive than Finland’s Helsinki.

Dublin’s position put it 16 places below the UK capital of London.

This index accounts for the cost of rents in each of the cities, something that pushes a number of cities up the rankings due to high demand on accommodation.

Are we well paid in Ireland?

The UBS survey also looks at earning power that individuals have in each city around the world.

The city where workers earn the most was found to be Zurich, while Dublin was in 20th position.

It works out that someone working in Dublin could earn more than twice as much doing the same job in Zurich.

domestic purchasing power UBS UBS

The survey also compares the purchasing power of workers in different cities, with the cost of living compared with the amount of money someone might expect to earn.

On this measure Ireland ranked as 20th, ahead of the French city of Lyon but behind New Zealand’s Auckland.

Read: Could one of these six homes be the answer to the homeless crisis?

Also: Good news for landlords, bad news for everyone else

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