As we enter the next year, here’s how the world looks from our perspective.

Trends and Challenges:

• Ongoing housing shortages and high prices for all countries to varying degrees.  Singapore and Japan have stabilized, but remain at a competitive level.  New hotspot locations in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines will likely be the most challenging locations in 2025 as momentum into these countries continues unabated and little new housing is available to meet the need.
• Expect a shift from primary expat city locations to other, less expensive ones nearby.  For example Singapore locations to Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru in Malaysia as companies look to control costs.  The same holds true for Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia.
• Program requests for full services, but in shortened timeframes.  Unfortunately, there is no location in which we are able to complete a traditional home search in less than 2 days.  Several locations require more.
• We have been seeing and continue to expect a larger population of assignees who would not traditionally received support such as lower-level assignees, rotational, business travelers, etc. (sometimes resulting in these shorter program requests already stated.)  We have started working with several clients on compliance programs focusing services on the critical items and services that protect the assignee and company.  These are typically accompanied by our extensive mobile guides.
• We expect intra and inbound China and Hong Kong to be improved from 2024 volumes, but still slower than pre-covid.
• Many countries have or are in the process of implementing technology systems to better track and apply for immigration.  These will bring compliance further to the forefront but also in many cased will provide more transparency to the process. Implementation of these systems can be a bit erratic and there are often system bugs which tend to cause issues during the early months.
• Look for more local labor testing and selective visas especially in expat-rich locations like Singapore.
• Japan has been extending visa category options to invite talent and due to the weakening of the yen, making Japan a very attractive location from a cost perspective not to mention investment opportunities.

Throughout the year, we will be informing our clients of changes and news that will impact relocating assignees and their families in Asia.