Hong Kong has fallen six places to trail Singapore in the annual IMD World Talent Ranking released this month.
One of the world's foremost reports on the quality of international workforces, Hong Kong dropped from 12th internationally to 18th while Singapore remained steady in 13th position. The rankings highlight the extent to which countries develop, attract and retain talent to sustain the pool that enterprises employ to create long-term value.
Arturo Bris, Director, World Competitiveness Center noted, “Cultivating a skilled and educated workforce is crucial to strengthening competitiveness and achieving long-term prosperity, particularly in the current dynamic landscape where artificial intelligence, robotics and other new technologies constantly redefine the challenges that governments, businesses and society, in general, will have to face in the future.”
63 countries were assessed by IMD based on three factors: Investment and Development, Appeal, and Readiness. These factors include indicators that capture the resources invested in developing local talent, the extent to which a country attracts and retains talent and the quality of skills available in the talent pool.
Both Singapore and Hong Kong, who were ranked first and second respectively in Asia, were reported to excel in tapping into the international talent pool.
IMD World Talent Ranking 2018
Switzerland was ranked first and Denmark second for the fifth year in a row, followed by Norway, Austria and the Netherlands. Norway joins the top three, advancing four places up from last year, thanks to an improvement in public expenditure on education and the readiness of its talent pool. Canada (6th), Finland (7th), Sweden (8th), Luxembourg (9th), and Germany (10th) complete the top 10.
Bris expounded, “This year the most successful countries in talent competitiveness are mainly European, mid-size economies. Moreover, these countries share high levels of investment in education and quality of life.”
Hard data and responses to the IMD Executive Opinion Survey are used to produce the ranking. The latter annual survey compiles input from over six thousand executives based across the competing economies.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
