Money is more important than work-life balance

With Singapore being the world's most expensive city, it is understandable that professionals here will be looking at a higher salary when considering a new role. However, the surprise here is that work-life balance is not as important to them as we think.

According to Hudson's new report, a key priority for professionals in Singapore (75%), Hong Kong (69%) and China (66%) is higher salary, coming in top for all three countries.

In Singapore, this was followed by better benefits (67%) and career progression (67%), rounding up the top three benefits. Surprisingly, work-life balance only came in fourth place, with 64% of Singaporean professionals prioritising it.

In Hong Kong and China, work-life balance came in second, with 56% and 61% of professionals prioritising it respectively. When it comes to third place, Hong Kongers prioritised better benefits (52%) while the Chinese prioritised career progression (60%).

When it comes to the senior executives, their top priorities were significantly different. While the Singaporeans continued to prioritise high salary (69%), the Hong Kongers saw cultural fit (55%) as more important and the Chinese preferred work-life balance (57%).

While it is known that priorities constantly change according to age, interestingly, in Singapore, the priorities remain the same from age 20 to 35 and 35 to 50 - higher salary, followed by career progression and better benefits.

However, after the age of 50, the priorities of Singaporean professionals see a drastic change. Higher salary drops to third place, with 57% of the votes while better benefits take top place (72%), followed by cultural fit (64%).

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