European countries dominated the 2024 IMD World Talent Rating.
Didier Marti | Moment | Getty Images
For the eleventh consecutive 12 months, Switzerland topped the list because the world’s most talent-competitive country, in line with the IMD 2024 World Talent Rating, signaling its strong and stable talent pool despite the rapidly changing global work landscape.
The rating measures how economies around the globe perform in the case of sustaining their pool of talent. This 12 months, the list was developed through a mix of survey answers and hard data from the IMD World Competitiveness Center and external sources across 67 economies globally.
This data is broken down into three buckets: investment in and development of homegrown talent, appeal (the extent to which a rustic taps into the overseas talent pool) and readiness (the supply of skills and competencies within the talent pool), in line with the report.
These are the ten most talent-competitive economies globally:
- Switzerland
- Singapore
- Luxembourg
- Sweden
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Norway
- Netherlands
- Hong Kong
- Austria
European countries dominated this 12 months’s rating, landing in eight of the highest ten positions. Two economies in Asia also made the list with Singapore and Hong Kong landing at second and ninth place, respectively.
America, nonetheless, didn’t make the highest 10 and fell six spots to twenty first place this 12 months. Notably, the U.S. also fell from second in 2020 to 14th in 2024 within the appeal category, impacted by the country’s cost of living and picked up personal income tax rate.
The U.S. also fell within the readiness category to thirty second this 12 months. The country was rated as below average in language skills or the supply of language skills to satisfy the needs of enterprises, landing at 47 out of 67 economies globally.
Switzerland stays on the forefront of talent competitiveness, topping the list because the rating’s inception in 2014. The country dominates on investment and development, in addition to the appeal factor.
The European country tops the list in several criteria corresponding to quality of life, health infrastructure, university education, existence of a statutory minimum wage, ability to draw foreign highly expert personnel and more.
Singapore can also be a standout winner on this 12 months’s list. Town-state’s “rise from 18th position in 2014 to second place this 12 months may pose a challenge to Swiss domination within the near future,” in line with the report.
Singapore’s regular rise is driven by the readiness of its talent pool, rated as No. 1 amongst countries within the rating. The country also shows the very best absence of discrimination, and ranks first in the case of labor force growth, the supply of expert labor and the supply of finance skills, in line with the report.
While AI can bring unparalleled efficiency and productivity, it also threatens widespread job displacement, particularly in sectors which can be depending on routine tasks and automation.
José Caballero
senior economist on the IMD World Competitiveness Center
The impact of AI on the worldwide talent landscape
The 2024 WTR report, titled “The socio-economic implications of AI within the workplace,” also spotlights the impact that artificial intelligence has had on the worldwide talent landscape.
“While AI can bring unparalleled efficiency and productivity, it also threatens widespread job displacement, particularly in sectors which can be depending on routine tasks and automation,” said Caballero.
Notably, this 12 months’s report found that in Japan, Thailand, Singapore, the U.K. and Canada, “senior executives were found to contemplate AI to be most visible within the workplace by the way in which it’s replacing people. As well as, discrimination was found to be increasing in these economies,” in line with an IMD blog post.
“Incorporating AI into the workforce can introduce recent types of discrimination, corresponding to biased algorithms, which will reinforce existing inequalities and have broader social impacts on marginalized communities,” said Caballero within the report.
For instance, the report found that ladies’s employment is greater than twice as more likely to be affected by automation (7.9%) in comparison with men (2.9%) in high-income countries.
Ultimately, while high-income economies usually tend to see disruption and increased discrimination from AI adoption within the short-term in comparison with low-income economies, “also they are expected to acquire greater overall advantages,” in line with the report.
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