Vietnam among the top ten countries, where expats feel so happy to live amid the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report from CNBC, a leading US news agency for business.  

“The coronavirus pandemic impacted lives around the world, but depending on where you reside and the local response to prevention efforts, your experience may have varied greatly,” Jennifer Liu from CNBC stated.

Expats said that it is very easy to make new friends here in Vietnam. Photo: Booking.com

Those experiences are among the data collected by Internations, a global expat community, for its latest Expat Insider survey of more than 12,000 people to capture how happy they’ve been living and working abroad in the last year.

Vietnam, ranked 10th, is of the countries that made headlines early in the pandemic for its bold leadership in containing the coronavirus.

The survey showed that 86% of the expats who joined the survey said that they are happy with their job. Nearly 80% of them feel happy with their work-life balance. 85% are happy with the cost of living.

Over half of the expats (57%) feel ok with the quality of medical care. As a country renowned for its friendly and helpful people, 67% of them said that it is very easy to make new friends here in Vietnam.

Finally, 85% of expats said they are happy with life in the country in general.

Fish-catching, a familiar image of daily life in Vietnam. Photo: Vietnam Expat

Taiwan ranked the first on the Top list, other countries where expats are the happiest with work, life and cost of living are Mexico, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Portugal, New Zealand, Australia, Ecuador and Canada.

Covid-19 made a great impact on expats' lives. The pandemic delayed many people’s plans to move abroad, meanwhile, it has prevented quite a few expats from returning home during the past time.

Expat Insider survey, conducted in January 2021, asked expats to rate their satisfaction across four main categories, including quality of life (like a healthy environment and robust WiFi infrastructure), ease of settling in (such as language barriers and friendliness of local residents), personal finance (such as access to affordable health care) and working abroad (such as job security and a stable local economy). Locations with affordable costs of living, larger investments in social safety nets, and access to plenty of outdoor and leisure activities to balance work and life also top the list.