3 Swiss cities among world's top 10 in quality of life: survey

GENEVA - Three Swiss cities, Zurich, Geneva and Basel, have ranked among the world's top 10 cities to live, according to a latest survey on Tuesday.

In its 20th version of annual quality of living rankings released by Mercer consulting firm, Austria's capital city Vienna tops the list for the ninth year in a row as the city with the highest quality of living globally.

Vienna is followed by Zurich as the second, and Auckland, New Zealand, and Munich, Germany tied for third place.

The rest in the top 10 include Vancouver, Canada, also the ranking city in North America, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt, Germany, and Geneva and Basel, Switzerland.

Mercer's survey includes 231 cities worldwide and takes into account factors such as political stability, health care, education, crime and transport.

Despite economic volatility in Europe due to uncertainty around Brexit as well as increased political volatility in the region overall, many of its cities still offer the world's highest quality of living and continue to remain attractive destinations for expatriates on assignment, the survey said.

The rankings also show that cities in emerging markets, though challenged by economic and political turmoil, are catching up with top ranking cities, following decades of investing in infrastructure, recreational facilities, and housing, in order to attract talent and multinational businesses.

"With increasing globalization and changing demographic of the workforce -- attracting and retaining the right talent is set to be one of the key challenges for businesses over the next five years," said Ilya Bonic, senior partner and president of Mercer's career business.

"An increasingly diverse workforce is both more mobile and digital with highly diverging requirements and aspirations in terms of career, lifestyle and ultimately where and how they want to work. Companies need to consider these factors in their value proposition to both their local and their expatriate employees," he continued.

Mercer's survey is conducted annually to enable multinational companies and other organizations to compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments.