However, "auto-enrollment wards off one kind of inertia and creates another, " says Dave Tolve, a partner specializing in benefits at Mercer, the consulting firm.

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Mercer, a consulting firm, this scheme is likely to be attractive to many companies, because they will not have to pay a payroll tax on remuneration in the form of shares.

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Mercer, a consulting firm, publishes a ranking of big cities each year based on an assessment of about 40 factors falling into ten categories (political, economic, cultural, medical, educational, public-service, recreational, consumer-goods, housing and environmental).

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Still, Tokyo is the world's most expensive city for expatriates to live in, according to international human-resources consulting firm Mercer.

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In a similar survey last summer by human-resources-consulting firm Mercer, Singapore surpassed Hong Kong for the first time in the cost of living.

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According to the U.S. Compensation Planning Survey and research by the compensation consulting firm Mercer, companies plan to offer employees an average pay raise of 2.9 percent.

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The result: Even senior foreign nationals on assignment to the U.S. often "cannot open a bank account or get a line of credit, " says Ed Hannibal, North American mobility leader at consulting firm Mercer.

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"For a pension investor who is looking around the world thinking, 'I want a global portfolio, ' quite often the Firpta has stopped them filling in that North American piece, " said Paul Richards, head of European property at consulting firm Mercer.

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And there are other -- Mercer, a well-known independent benefits consulting firm, released a surveyed of employers showing that their health insurance cost increases will average 5.4 percent for 2012, which is the smallest increase -- or would be the smallest since 1997.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing