Who needs expats?

IF CHIEF EXECUTIVES are the monarchs of the corporate world, the cadre of well-paid staff they deploy from head office to oversee operations across the planet are their ambassadors. In the golden era of globalisation, sending an expatriate Western executive to a distant emerging market signalled the place was being taken seriously. That model was starting to feel out of date before covid-19 made foreign travel a misery. As Zoom and remote work have become the norm, is shuffling emissaries across the world even worth it anymore?Some 280m people live in a country other than their own, often because of their job. Many toil on building sites in the Gulf or mind brats in Manhattan. High-flying expats are the most cosseted of these migrants. Their exalted status, should it need to be pinned down, is secured by snagging a housing allowance, school fees for the brood, annual flights home and a healthy salary bump. Some business folk have turned into perennial business wanderlusters, making a career out of flitting from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi to Lagos.