Context

INSEAD business school in partnership with Tata Communications and Adecco Group has released Global Talent Competitive Index, 2019.

About

Global Talent Competitive Index

• It is a comprehensive annual benchmark measuring how countries and cities grow, attract and retain talent, providing a unique resource for decision makers to understand the global talent competitiveness picture and develop strategies for boosting their competitiveness.
• The report measures levels of Global Talent Competitiveness by looking at 68 variables.
• The 2019 index covers 125 national economies and 114 cities (respectively 119 and 90 in 2018) across all groups of income and levels of development.

Highlights of the Report

• Switzerland continues to lead the index, while Singapore and the United States come in second and third respectively.
• The top three is followed by Scandinavian countries, Norway (4th), Denmark (5th), Finland (6th), and Sweden (7th).
• Yemen has finished at the bottom of this year’s index at 125th, just below Congo (124th) and Burundi (123rd).
• Washington is the top-ranked city followed by Copenhagen, Oslo, Vienna and Zurich. Washington’s position can be attributed to its strong performance across four of the five pillars measured in the research, specifically in the “Be Global”, “Attract”, “Grow” and “Enable” pillars.
• The steady economy, dynamic population, outstanding infrastructure and connectivity, highly-skilled workforce and world class education are all characteristics which contribute to making the city a talent hub.
• The report also reveals that cities rather than countries are developing stronger roles as talent hubs and will be crucial to reshaping the global talent scene.
• This growing importance of cities is due to their greater flexibility and ability to adapt to new trends and patterns – as nimble economic units where policy can be changed more swiftly, cities are thus more attractive for talent, especially entrepreneurial talent.

     Main focus (Entrepreneurial talent)

• This year’s report has a special focus on entrepreneurial talent-how it is being encouraged, nurtured and developed throughout the world and how this affects the relative competitiveness of different economies.

The results show that:

• New approaches are emerging to stimulate entrepreneurial talent and future proof employees – for example, the efforts to develop bottom up innovation and empower employees.
• The highest-ranking countries and cities tend to be the most open to entrepreneurial talent.
• Digitalisation and globalisation are increasing the role of entrepreneurial talent.

 Overall View

• For the first time, the 2019 GTCI provides a longitudinal analysis of talent competitiveness based on the results of all GTCI editions since 2013.
• The main finding is that the gap separating the talent champions from the rest of the global community has been growing.
• Talent competitiveness is strengthening in groups of countries where it is already comparatively high and weakening in those where it is relatively low.

India’s Rank

• At 80th rank, India has moved up one position on index.
• India's biggest challenge is to improve its ability to attract and retain talent.
• It further added, there is a need to address its poor level of Internal Openness in particular with respect to weak gender equality and low tolerances towards minorities and immigrants—and its disappointing showing in lifestyle indicators.