Are they Overpaid Overseas?

Judged by the sum of their special living allowances, bonuses and "hardship" pay, American businessmen working abroad are considerably better off than their stay-at-home counterparts. At least that is the conclusion of the National Industrial Conference Board in a report issued after a survey of 104 senior executives of U.S. corporations with international operations.

The report prompted one West German newspaper to comment that Americans abroad are paid "ducal salaries." It has stirred a somewhat different reaction from U.S. executives in Europe. "I read that and gulped hard," says Ed ward Roach, European marketing director for Honeywell Inc., who is transferring this month from Frankfurt to Brussels. "Only if you're willing to live like a native can you do pretty well." The trouble, according to some overseas executives, is that living like a native often means squeezing a family into a cramped apartment and doing without some amenities that Americans take for granted. "The glamorous expense account is just a cross that leads to swollen livers, nerves and family breakups," says a Pan American World Airways manager in Rome.

Costly Commuting. Americans transferred to Europe seem particularly disgruntled by the high price of food, appliances and other creature comforts. To be sure, U.S. prices are now rising at a 6%-a-year rate -- considerably faster than prices in almost all European countries. But items that are inexpensive in the U.S. are often costly in Europe. In West Germany, some self-service laundries charge $1 to wash a load of clothing. Cantaloupes often sell for $1.75 apiece; coffee costs $1.74 a pound. Bread costs 60-c- a loaf in Paris, and cigarettes are 75-c- a pack in London. A publisher in Amsterdam sold his U.S. car when he discovered that commuting to work cost $5 a day in gas.

The greatest single dissatisfaction is the shortage of moderately priced housing considered acceptable by U.S. suburban standards. Emmet Harriss of Manhattan's First National City Bank spent $7,500 renovating his Paris flat, but still has to budget $800 a year for electrical repairs. The chief of operations for a U.S. oil company was dismayed to find the plumbing so erratic in his villa on Rome's Via Appia Antica that for a time he stocked bottled water for guests to wash in. When William Wyman, vice president of Booz, Allen & Hamilton, rented an apartment in Duesseldorf, he and his wife discovered that the rent was only the beginning of their housing costs. "Not only did we have no appliances, but we had to buy the kitchen sink," says Mrs. Wyman.

The practice of paying lavish allowances began years ago with the oil companies. Then it was a way of inducing men to accept jobs in Africa and the Middle East. Today, the extras apply almost everywhere and sometimes add 50% to a paycheck. International Harvester pays its employees a bonus of as much as 20% to go abroad, and Pan American grants a flat $75 a month. General Motors expects its men to pay 15% of their salaries for rent, but the company defrays seven-eighths of anything above that level. Like many other corporations, G.M. also pays for the children's private school and flies the whole family home once every two years.

Despite all the tales of woe, few executives seem eager to avoid tours of duty abroad. Increasingly, U.S. companies are sending promising young men, rather than veterans, to posts in their overseas divisions. Says Booz Allen's Wyman: "The young tiger of today realizes that if he is going to be president tomorrow, he needs international experience." Among such men, cash incentives are growing less important as a lure to foreign jobs. Most of Europe is no longer a cheap place to live in, but then neither is much of the U.S.

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