The FIFA World Cup South Africa soccer/football tournament is in it’s final week of first round matches and the first supporters are celebrating the fact that their team will be competing in the next round of the tournament. Countries can have different reasons to attempt organizing an event like this. Think of the impact it has on their economy or a boost to their image, both for the country and the host cites.

The Intelligence Group, a strategic research and advice agency specializing in recruitment and labor market communications, examined the data from it’s recent research conducted in over 40 countries, the Global Talent Mobility Research, to determine whether cities that are known for organizing an event or being the home city of famous soccer clubs, are popular cities with respect to the interest of candidates’ willingness to consider working and living there.

The cities Cape Town and Johannesburg, currently hosting the World Cup soccer aren’t very popular with candidates. Respectively 0.7% and 0.5% of the international mobile workforce would move to either one of these cities. This is one of the results from the Global Talent Mobility Research, executed in July and August of 2009 by Intelligence Group and The Network. Can it be stated that the fact that organizing big events doesn’t affect its image as a potential new place to live, or is this just the case for South Africa?

A closer look at the ranking of popular cities does show cities that are, at least to a part of the population, known for their soccer clubs or Olympic history. Highly ranked cities are Milan, Barcelona and Madrid where respectively 4.8%, 4.4% and 3.4% of the international mobile workforce would consider working there. Unfortunately, these cities are also known for many other things as well, like their excellent climate and high level of culture. Therefore it is hard to conclude that these cities are popular just because of their soccer performance.

On the other hand, there are also cities that are specifically known for their soccer clubs and less for other aspects, like Manchester, Glasgow, Sevilla and Liverpool. It can’t be stated that those cities are famous for big companies that are located there, (with the exception of Sevilla) they aren’t known for their great weather and they aren’t usually seen as cultural destinations. Of these cities, Manchester is the most popular with 1.4% of the people that would move to Manchester to start a career. Not only is this percentage low but it also shows a disappointing ranking (in terms of popularity) as well, with the highest rank of 41 for Manchester and rankings over 100 for Sevilla and Glasgow. Therefore it can be stated that these typical soccer cities aren’t popular employment destinations, just like the case for the South African cities.

What is interesting is the popularity of the Olympic cities Vancouver and Montreal, which are locations that 3.2% and 3% of all international candidates would consider. Especially Vancouver will, at this point in time, leverage the attraction advantages of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Unfortunately, other Olympic cities, like Seoul, which aren’t known for many other reasons, don’t show high popularity.

It could be that, even though the impact is limited, male candidates show higher interests in the cities just mentioned compared to females. In the case of Manchester and Montreal it can be stated that men are slightly more interested in a job in these cities than women, with in both cases differences of one percent. For all other cities, it can’t be concluded that men show higher preferences for moving there than women.

Research concludes that there is no specific correlation between the popularity of major sporting event organizing cities and recruitment success

Cities that try to increase their popularity in order to attract new people to work and live there, shouldn’t focus too much on organizing huge events like the World Cup soccer or the Olympic games. The Intelligence Group research showed that those cities as well as cities known for their soccer club don’t show high levels of popularity for an international mobile workforce. It could be that, at least for a shorter period, popularity rises because people are more aware of the city, as could be the case with Vancouver, but in the long term, both for men and women, no correlation was found.

Last update : 12-07-2010 18:21

Keywords : World cup soccer, winter olympics, employment, international labour movement, intelligence group, the network

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