IMD World Talent Ranking 2020

Trends in the World Talent Ranking 2020

Arturo Bris Director IMD World Competitiveness Center José Caballero Senior Economist IMD World Competitiveness Center

Christos Cabolis Chief Economist IMD World Competitiveness Center Marco Pistis Research Specialist IMD World Competitiveness Center

Introduction

The IMD World Talent Ranking captures the capacity of an economy to develop as well as attract talent to strengthen its competitiveness. In order to quantify the quality of an economy’s talent pool we evaluate three factors. The Investment and Development factor measures how an economy fosters domestic talent; the Appeal factor assesses the extent to which an economy retains homegrown talent along with drawing from the international talent pool; and finally, the Readiness factor measures the quality of the skills and competences that are available in the country. In 2020, Switzerland and Denmark hold the first and second position, respectively, for the fifth consecutive year. Luxembourg, Iceland and Sweden complete the five most competitive economies with respect to talent. Austria, Norway, Singapore and the Netherlands remain in the top ten positions with small fluctuations from last year while Canada moves up five spots to become the eighth most talent-competitive economy. For 2020, the most talent-competitive economies are those that invest in education. In our ranking we include criteria that capture the quality of education at all levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Furthermore, in the most competitive economies apprenticeships are sufficiently implemented and the provision of employee training is a priority for companies. The top performers, therefore, are

countries that invest in a holistic concept of education. To put it differently, highly competitive countries focus their talent development efforts on every stage of the educational process. In addition, economies at the top of the ranking are those that appeal to an international talent pool. By definition, these are countries that are open, both to people and ideas. The pandemic has affected our lives in different ways. A major disruption that occurred rapidly for many people, was the separation between the working place and “the place from which people work nowadays”. Throughout the world, those members of the labor force whose tasks can be accomplished remotely, work from home. There are different pros and cons for this reality. An important component is the sustainability of workers’ motivation while being away from the physical work-place and their co-workers. In this regard, in the midst of the current COVID-19 crisis, we identify a trend among the top-ranking economies. Firms in these countries are able to motivate their work force continuously. The next section provides an analysis of the trends and outcomes from a regional perspective. It follows with a detailed account of the highest and lowest ranked economies, as well as the countries that experienced a significant change in their position compared to last year.

Regional trends in the World Talent Ranking 2020

In this section we provide the trends of the 2020 IMD World Talent Ranking at a regional level.

World Talent Ranking, 11 remained in the same position and 25 declined. The largest improvements in the ranking compared to 2019 have been experienced by Turkey (+12), Estonia (+8), the UAE (+6), Peru, Chile and Canada (+5). On the other hand, Russia (-7), Kazakhstan (-6), Hungary and Saudi Arabia (-5) are the economies that showed the most significant declines this year.

The IMD World Talent Ranking studies 63 economies of middle and high income per capita. Figure 1 provides a visualization of the changes in the Talent Ranking between 2019 and 2020 in Asia, Europe and the Americas. In 2020, 27 economies improved their performance in the

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IMD WORLD TALENT RANKING 2020