What are location factors?

Location factors are economic and demographic metrics that help you get a sense of the business environment of a location. We provide data for the following factors:

  • Time difference: The difference in time between each location and your chosen location. By default, your chosen location is set using your IP address. It can be customized in the “Time zone” map. Time difference calculation is based on Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), which does not take into account daylight savings.

  • Population: The total number of people living in each location.

  • Qualified population: The estimated number of qualified working professionals that match your search as a proportion of the total number of working professionals.

  • Unemployment rate: The number of unemployed individuals as a proportion of the total number of employed and unemployed individuals. We use each country’s local definition of “unemployed.”

  • Corporate income tax rate: The corporate income tax rate for the country each location belongs to.

  • Minimum wage: The hourly minimum wage for the state or country each location belongs to. When available, we use state minimum wage; otherwise, we use national minimum wage. 



What can I use this data for?

You can use location factors to understand the economic or demographic situation in a particular location, which may help you determine whether that location might be viable for your business.


Acquire: Where do you get your location factors data?

Our location factors data comes from online government sources (like statistics bureaus and censuses) and inter-governmental organizations (like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations).



Organize: How do you prepare the data for analysis?

Our Data Science team reviews the data points collected from our sources to ensure uniformity and consistency. After this, the datasets are assigned to the proper locations in our taxonomy.



Analyze: How do you calculate location factors?

Most of our location factors are standardized values that do not require any calculation or conversion on our part. However, you can find more information about them below:

  • Time difference: The difference in time between each location and your chosen location. By default, your chosen location is set using your IP address. It can be customized in the “Time zone” map. Time difference calculation is based on Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), which does not take into account daylight savings.

  • Population: The total number of individuals living in a location.

  • Unemployment rate: The number of unemployed individuals as a proportion of the total number of employed and unemployed individuals. We use each country’s local definition of “unemployed.”

  • Corporate income tax rate: The corporate income tax rate for the country each location belongs to.


We do have to perform calculations for two locations factors:

  • Qualified population: The estimated number of qualified working professionals that match your search as a proportion of the total number of working professionals.

    To calculate qualified population, we divide the supply returned for your search in that location by the total supply in that location.


  • Minimum wage (hourly): The hourly minimum wage for the state or country each location belongs to. When available, we use state minimum wage; otherwise, we use national minimum wage.

    Different countries represent minimum wage in different ways. Some use an hourly rate, while others use a daily rate. To allow for cross-country comparisons, we convert the value provided by the local government to an hourly rate, assuming an 8-hour workday.


If any data point is missing for a given location or year, we use various statistical methods to approximate the missing value.



Deliver: How do you represent location factors data? 

We represent location factors as a number of different economic and demographic measurements.



More about location factors:


What countries do you have location factors data for?
We provide corporate income tax rate and minimum wage data for all the countries we support. Other location factors metrics – population, qualified population, and unemployment rate – are only available for Group A and Group B countries. You can find a complete list of the data points we provide for each country (along with their refresh date) below.





What location types do you have location factors data for?

  • Timezone: We provide time zone data for countries that are within one time zone, as well as MSAs, counties, and cities. For countries that span multiple time zones, we display the difference between your selected location and each of that country's time zones. We cannot provide time zone data for states. 

  • Population: We provide population data for countries and MSAs. Searches for states, counties, and cities will not return data. 

  • Qualified population: We provide qualified population for countries, states, and MSAs. Searches for counties and cities will not return data.

  • Unemployment rate: We provide unemployment data for countries and cities. Searches for states, counties, and cities will not return data.

  • Corporate income tax rate: While there are some countries (like the United States) where the tax rate varies by MSA, in these locations, the tax rate might depend on multiple factors (like company size and revenue), making it difficult to compare to other locations. For this reason, we provide corporate income tax rate data at the country level. Searches for states, MSAs, counties, and cities, will return data for the country they are part of

  • Minimum wage: Availability of minimum wage data varies by country. Some countries (like the United Kingdom and France) have a national minimum wage. Others (like the Philippines and Canada) have various regional minimum wages. Still others (like Italy and Singapore) do not have a set minimum wage.

    Searches for countries will return the national minimum wage, if there is one. Searches for states, MSAs, counties, and cities will show the minimum wage for the state they are part of or, if there is no state-level data, the country they are part of. If there is no state or national minimum wage, searches will return “N/A.”

    Below are the countries for which we can provide state-level minimum wage data:

  • USA

  • Canada

  • India

  • Philippines

  • China

  • Japan

  • Switzerland



What search filters impact location factors?

Because location factors are attributes of different geographies, the only filter that affects location factors is the location filter.