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Beverly King , Vice President , Business Development & Consulting , EMEA & APAC and Global Diversity , Equity & Inclusion Council Member & EMEA Regional Lead at Graebel , who specialise in temporary and permanent relocations .
“ We have seen fewer long-term assignments since the pandemic and more permanent moves since before lockdown ” she says . “ Where there are assignments , we have seen a more recent uplift on short-term as opposed to the traditional long-term assignments .”
“ If a stay is long term , clients and their employees opt for permanent housing . But if they are only in location for a couple of months , they won ’ t be renting a property because of complexities in terms of break clauses and so on . Serviced accommodation is often a much more flexible option .”
Having enjoyed a bumper 2022 , corporate housing providers also report a reluctance amongst many companies to hire because of lingering fears that the pandemic might return . Steve Frey , CEO at Oasis , points to higher interest rates as another major factor .
“ Coming out of Covid lockdowns , we saw demand ramp up quite significantly . This pent-up demand needed to be served , however , there was a shortage of available staff , so companies had to raise wages to attract good people . The increases in wages then caused those companies to have to increase their prices , continuing the inflationary cycle .“
“ As we entered into 2023 , transaction volumes started to level . Some of the largest tech companies were significantly reducing their staff sizes . That meant they were not hiring as many people or moving more people around the world , which is what our business relies upon .”
“ Our view is that the major employers have done their massive rounds of layoffs and that by the second half of 2023 we will start to get back to normal provided the ‘ soft landing recession ’ prediction proves accurate .”
Fig . 5 Average length of stay - 2023 corporate predictions