IMD World Talent Ranking 2022

3. Top ten economies in terms of their talent competitiveness

The overall results of the 2022 WTR show a fair degree of year-to-year stability among the top 10 economies, with six out of 10 remaining in the same position. The results also highlighted the talent prowess of the Nordic countries, which occupy every place from second to sixth. Switzerland remains in the top spot followed – in descending order – by Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Denmark then Finland. Luxembourg drops to seventh place, while Austria falls to eighth. The Netherlands and Germany remain in ninth and 10 th position, respectively. Switzerland performs robustly across all factors, ranking first in Investment & Development and in Appeal, and second in Readiness. At the indicator level, there are strengths across the board. The country reaches first place in several criteria including the effective imple mentation of apprenticeships, attracting foreign highly skilled personnel and the availability of finance skills and of managers with international experience. Switzerland ranks second in the prioritization of employee training by the private sector, the level of motivation of the labor force and the availability of language skills. There is, however, room for improvement which would enable the country to sustain its talent competitiveness; the quality of education as measured by pupil-teacher ratio remains relatively low, with the economy ranking 36 th in the primary school indicator and 32 nd in the secondary school one. In the female labor force (as a percentage of the total labor force) indicator, the country ranks 26 th and in that of graduates in science, 28 th . Despite ranking fourth in quality of life, in a related criterion – exposure to particle pollution – Switzerland ranks 15 th . Sweden remains in second spot by performing strongly in Appeal (second) and to a lesser extent in Readiness (sixth) and Investment & Development (seventh). It reaches its highest rank at the criteria level in the impact of brain drain and in the exposure to particle pollution, placing second in both. Other areas of strength are the availability of language skills and of competent senior managers (third in both). While in its fairness of the administration of justice Sweden ranks fourth, it reaches fifth position in the prioritization that its private sector assigns to talent attraction and retention, and in total public expenditure on education. Similarly to Switzerland, the country’s position in quality of education is relatively low, ranking 23 rd in the primary-school indicator and 35 th in the secondary school one. The effective implementation of apprenticeship and the health infrastructure as well as attracting foreign highly skilled staff show a relatively low performance ranking 19 th , 16 th and 17 th , respectively. Other areas of improve ment include graduates in sciences (20 th ) and student

mobility inbound (foreign tertiary-level students per 1,000 inhabitants, 29 th ).

Iceland moves up to third position (from seventh) mainly due to its performance in the Investment & Development (fourth) and in Appeal (eighth). It ranks 13 th in the Readiness factor. Iceland’s strengths include total public expenditure on education (fourth) and expenditure per student (third) as well as the availability of skilled labor and finance skills (third in both) and the quality of life (third). In the effectiveness of university education and the availability of language skills, it ranks fourth. It also performs well in the pollution indicator (fifth), the level of worker motivation and the impact of brain drain (sixth in both). Among Iceland’s weaknesses are the imple mentation of apprenticeships (42 nd ), the prioritization of employee training (35 th ) and the female labor force (31 st ). The impact of the relatively low performance in attracting highly skilled staff (34 th ) is felt in the avail ability of managers with international experience (35 th ). In the PISA assessment (survey of 15-year-olds), Iceland ranks 30 th and more problematic for the long-term talent competitiveness of the country, in graduate in sciences, it places at 53 rd . Norway remains in fourth position overall, ranking fifth in Investment & Development, ninth in Appeal and 14 th in Readiness. At the indicator level, it ranks first in the availability of skilled labor, second in the availability of finance skills, fourth in the impact of brain drain and fifth in both the total public expenditure on education per student and the pupil-teacher ratio (primary education). Norway also performs well in the implementation of apprenticeships (sixth), in the prioritization of talent attraction and retention (seventh) and the level of worker motivation (eighth). Its performance could improve in the area of the female labor force and the availability of mangers with international experience (21 st in both) as well as in the PISA assessment (22 nd ), student mobility inbound (36 th ) and graduates in sciences (41 st ). In addition, a drop in the effectiveness of the health infra structure (from 10 th to 17 th ), may signal some issues of concern for the future. Denmark also remains stable in fifth position. It ranks second in Investment & Development and eighth in Readiness but its performance in Appeal is relatively weaker at 17 th . Its performance is robust in several indicators; it ranks first in the prioritization of employee training, the prioritization of talent attraction and retention, worker motivation, brain drain and the avail ability of competent senior managers. In the availability of skilled labor, Denmark ranks relatively well at 14 th , but this represents a decline when compared to last year’s fifth. Despite improving to the 34 th spot (from 40 th ), the

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