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A general view taken on April 20, 2008 shows the Swiss city of Zurich and the Limmat River. Employees in Zurich and Geneva have the highest net wages in the world, a study by banking group UBS shows.

It pays to work in Switzerland: employees in Zurich and Geneva have the highest net wages in the world, a study by banking group UBS shows, while those in India's Mumbai take home the lowest.

The Swiss cities were also ranked among the top five most expensive in the world in the bank's 2009 "Price and Earnings²" international study.

"With its extremely high gross wages and comparatively low tax rates, Switzerland is a very employee-friendly country," the Swiss bank said in a statement.

"No other cities allows workers to take home more income at the end of the month than Zurich and Geneva."

The study, published every three years, compares the income and purchasing power of employees in 73 cities across the globe, highlighting wide discrepancies³ in wages between different regions, and even within the same country.

The biggest gaps were found in Asia, the study said, with Tokyo ranking as one of the world's five costliest⁴ cities while the capitals of developing countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines and India were all at the bottom of the price range.

Oslo was this year's most expensive city, based on a standardized⁵ basket of 122 goods and services, followed by Zurich, Copenhagen, Geneva, Tokyo and New York.

When rents are factored in, however, New York rises to the top spot, the study said.

This year, the bank said currency fluctuations⁶ caused by the global economic crisis affected⁷ the rankings of several cities, most notably⁸ London, which was the second most expensive city in 2006, but which fell nearly 20 places following the pound's drop earlier this year.

The analysis involved more than 30,000 data points, collected by several independent observers in each city, in March and April, the bank said. All amounts were converted into a single currency before being compared.

The world's cheapest places to live were Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur, Manila in the Philippines, and India's Delhi and Mumbai. But the average employee in many of these cities, as well as Jakarta and Nairobi, gets paid some of the world's lowest salaries which have between 11 percent and 15 percent of the purchasing power of a salary in Zurich.

"An average wage-earner in Zurich and New York can buy an iPod nano from an Apple store after nine hours of work. At the other end of the spectrum⁹, workers in Mumbai need to work 20 nine-hour days, roughly the equivalent of one month's salary," the study said.

Working hours also varied¹⁰ in the cities surveyed, with the study finding that on average, people in Asian and Middle Eastern cities work much more than the global average of 1,902 hours per year. Overall, the most hours are worked in Cairo, followed by Seoul, while the least hours worked were in Lyon and Paris.

For the full UBS "Prices and Earnings" study click on www.ubs.com/research

在瑞士工作真划算。瑞士联合银行集团（UBS）的一项最新调查显示，苏黎世和日内瓦的净工资水平居全球之首，印度孟买最低。

该银行开展的2009年度“价格与收入”全球调查显示，苏黎世和日内瓦还同时跻身全球五大最贵城市。

瑞银集团在一份声明中称，“瑞士的税后工资水平很高，而税率又相对较低，因此在这里工作很舒服。

“没有哪个城市的净工资水平能比得上苏黎世和日内瓦。”

这项调查每三年发布一次，共对全球73个城市的收入水平和购买力进行了比较。调查发现，不同地区甚至同一国家各城市的薪资水平均存在很大差异。

其中亚洲地区的薪资差异最大，东京跻身全球五大最贵城市，而马来西亚、菲律宾和印度等发展中国家的首都则排在最后几名。

奥斯陆被评为全球最贵城市，苏黎世、哥本哈根、日内瓦、东京和纽约位居其后。这一排名是通过对包括122种商品和服务的“标准篮”的价格进行计算和比较得出的。

调查称，如果将房租考虑在内，纽约则是全球最贵的城市。

据瑞银集团介绍，今年由于全球经济危机导致币值波动，几个城市的排名受到了影响，其中最典型的是伦敦。伦敦于2006年被评为全球第二大最贵城市，但由于今年年初英镑贬值，伦敦的排名下降了近20位。

据介绍，这些分析基于各城市的独立观察员于今年三、四月份收集的三万多个数据点，而且所有金额都换算成了单一货币进行比对。

全球消费最低的城市为马来西亚的吉隆坡、菲律宾的马尼拉、印度的德里和孟买。但这些城市以及雅加达和内罗比的普通员工的薪资却为全球最低，购买力仅为苏黎世的11%至15%。

调查称，在苏黎世和纽约，普通工薪族工作9小时就可在“苹果”专卖店买一个iPod nano播放器。而在低收入国家，孟买的工薪层则需要工作20天，每天工作9小时才能买得起，而且这几乎相当于他们一个月的工资。

受访城市的工作时长也各不相同。调查发现，平均来看，亚洲和中东地区城市的年工作时间远多于全球的年平均水平1902小时。总体来看，开罗的工作时间最长，其次是首尔，里昂和巴黎的工作时间最短。

瑞银集团发布的“价格与收入”完整榜单可登陆www.ubs.com/research网站查询。

Vocabulary:

purchasing power: the ability to purchase goods and services（购买力）

currency fluctuation: 币值波动

wage-earner:工薪族；靠工资生活的人