There was a flurry of expat assignments in the past few years. Many expensive ones to Singapore and KL. Many of these folks are still in place despite the current situation. How does the company justify these guys remaining on the gravy train whilst a lot of regular employees are culled? Smacks of the old "club" mentality at play?
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Expats supposed to return from a safer country back home (where pandemic is not well controlled), they will justify their stay in a safer country. Hope they are not so selfish.
They're trying to send expats home but can't find jobs for them because everyone is trying to go down in headcount. I'm an expat myself right now and my home country won't take me back because there's no job for me. I also have an expat on my team and we can't send him home also because his home country has no position for him. Just waiting to see what happens with the cuts when the dust settles, maybe something will open up.
We should rarely expatriate someone with less than 5 years experience. They are not worth the cost except in a few remote project locations. Upstream expats rose o over 10%, In past we were under 8%. Same with Executives over 10%, We can do with much fewer expats/CL30+ and fewer CL 28/29. Plus salary bands need to be reduced by 20%. Plus headcount by 20%. TOO MUCH OVERHEAD. Not enough profit.
XOM is an American company so for Europeans and Asians, etc. is not fair to write this. Go to Total in France and unless you are French you will never become a lead, not to mention manager. The same in Kazakhstan, Malaysia, etc. So, stop complaining. You guys were given a lot. I wish our presidents were americans as they would do better jobs than those two from UK.
paid for everything and make decisions on what to cut and who to go jobless locally. How selfish.
The US needs to start worrying about the US again and see that this has been a downfall for this country.
I didn’t know the US was lacking in big tech. Get real. For years no one has had to come teach the US. It has been quite the opposite. Ask the engineers and scientists that have had to do it and were kept under the radar.
@gxa+17DPW4z9, yours is the funniest post I've read in a long while
It doesn't matter if they are coming here or going there, they still cost more money than if they were at home. As fas as it providing any benefit, just look where we are as a company. I would say it's a rousing success (sarcasm).
Maybe I should have been clearer. Yes I was specifically talking about expats from the US to places like europe or Asia. I was a UK employee and had assignment to us. Even with my expat package, I was on broadly what a US employee was in terms of overall remuneration. US expats to other countries are hugely expensive and this is really what I was trying to understand. Expat assignments are definitely a useful thing to have, but many seem like rewards for the chosen ones and often far from business critical.
The Regular expats to the US are never cheaper although for some, the cost is close to the cost of a local employee. There are indeed some real needs for expats. But up until now I would argue that up to 75% of the expats assignments are not business critical. Many are just perks for friends.
You may not realize that most expats into the US are cheaper or about the equivalent cost to a US employee and they come with international experience and are typically high performers ( otherwise they wouldn’t get the opportunity). The company isn’t stupid when it pays for expats they are getting their pound of flesh from said expat. Some expats end up on the circuit for many years because their home affiliate doesn’t have any positions for them to return to due to downsizing although I expect more will go back and get made redundant.
Simple, we send the best of the best and brightest as expats to teach locals or to just be awesome at taking on the worlds toughest energy challenges. After all, aren’t we the #winning?
Remember, #weareexxonmobil
Look at all the expats in Canada & USA. I mean really? With all the talent in USA & Canada, why high dollar expats needed?
Maybe it's because the technical expertise in these areas are lacking.. To train up people in the area, maybe you need someone that actually knows what they are doing
hope that when they look at the cost of workforce they remove the expats cost... cost of living in Singapore is so different for the expats ($100k+/year rental) vs locals. Just the rental is enough to save a 30 year old engineer's job