IMD World Talent Ranking 2022

Talent mobility in the post pandemic world

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

Christos Cabolis Chief Economist & Head of Operations IMD World Competitiveness Center Marco Pistis Research Specialist IMD World Competitiveness Center

1. Introduction

The IMD World Talent Ranking (WTR) evaluates the capacity of an economy to develop the skills and compe tences of its domestic talent and, at the same time, to appeal to the international talent pool so it satisfies the local market’s employment demand and enhances its overall competitiveness. The WTR studies 63 economies by quantifying 31 criteria that are allocated to one of three factors: The Investment & Development factor considers the domestic resources committed to cultivate homegrown talent. The Appeal factor evaluates the ability to attract and retain talent from both the international and domestic markets. And the Readiness factor quantifies the quality of the available skills and competences in the talent pool. The ninth edition of the WTR is launched in the context of continuous worldwide disruptions. While the pandemic that brought a health and an economic crisis seems to have subsided, the re-emergence of geopolitical risks has introduced further turmoil to the international system.

work remotely fared more effectively in their responses to lockdowns. Of course, the disruptions originating from travelling restrictions and economy-wide lockdowns affected the flows (inward and outward) of skilled employees. It was expected that skilled labor would not necessarily leave their country of origin. Remote working, however, enabled skilled talent to work from different parts of the world, which allowed for a relatively sustainable access to talent. By contrast, this year we observe a shift away from working remotely because many companies are thinking twice about distance work, expecting employees to return to the workplace. How will this affect the brain drain that affected different economies in the pre-pandemic world? In section two we will study the overall regional trends for talent competitiveness, comparing strengths with areas for improvement around the world. Section three will narrow the analysis by outlining the talent competitiveness landscape for the ten highest-ranked economies. In section four, we explore talent mobility by comparing relevant criteria for the pre-pandemic year (2019) and post pandemic 2022. Section five concludes.

During the pandemic, economies that had the techno logical infrastructure to allow part of the labor force to

2. Regional trends

Last five years

2022

Figure 1 depicts the evolution of regional trends for the last five years (2018-2022). During that period, Western European economies have dominated the WTR, exhib iting a very different trajectory to that of North American economies. The latter experience a slight increase this year, exchanging second place with Eastern Asia which experienced a decline. Conversely Ex-CIS & Central Europe together with South America still lag behind with respect to other regions across the world; they struggle to sustain favorable conditions for talent retention and attraction.

Figure 2 details the prevailing strength of Western European across all three factors. Eastern Asian economies follow in the Investment & Development and Readiness factors, showcasing the importance that these economies place on education and the develop ment of local talent. The performance of Eastern Asia, in addition, benefits from a solid alignment between the talent needs of the private sector (Readiness) and the talent provided by the educational system of the countries in the area (Investment & Development). North America takes second place in the Appeal factor,

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