Switzerland is the best place to attract and retain talent for the fifth consecutive year, according to the latest annual ranking from IMD.
The IMD World Competitiveness Center just released its annual World Talent Ranking, as first reported by CNBC. This ranking looks at 63 global economies and ranks them based on how competitive and attractive they are to workers within the country and internationally.
The ranking is based on three different metrics: appeal, or retaining talent both within the country and from abroad; readiness, or "quality of the skills and competences" of talent; and investment and development, or "how an economy fosters domestic talent."
Each metric is based on different indicators. For instance, an economy's employee training and total public expenditure on education are two of the indicators that fall under investment and development.
Most of the economic and country data used in the ranking comes from 2019, and survey responses used for 17 of the 31 indicators are from January to April 2020, just when the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to have a major negative impact across the world. Survey questions included whether attracting and retaining talent is a priority for companies and whether higher education meets the needs for a competitive job market, among other topics.
The report notes that the most competitive countries are those that value education and appeal to international workers. "Highly competitive countries focus their talent development efforts on every stage of the educational process," IMD wrote in the report.
Several European countries placed at the top, similar to previous rankings from IMD. European countries made up 10 of the top 15 economies that foster and attract talent on this year's list. Hong Kong and Singapore were the only Asian economies to make the top 15.
Switzerland ranked number one, as it did in last year's ranking. The US didn't make the top 10 but it did rank 15th, falling three spots from last year's ranking. Several Northern European countries all made the top 15, including Denmark, which placed second.
Based on IMD's analysis of eight major world regions, Western Europe lead in investment and development and readiness, but fell slightly behind North America's appeal for talent. South America fell behind other regions in both investment and development and the readiness of talent skills and competences available.
Although the US ranked high in its appeal to talent, its readiness score was ranked 27th. Some of the indicators that brought down this rank was the share of graduates in science fields where it ranked 51st, and it also ranked 32nd for primary and secondary education meets the needs of a competitive economy.
The following are the 15 countries that made the top of 2020 World Talent Ranking list, along with where they placed last year. Three countries in the top 15 saw no change from last year, and 11 of the 63 saw no change.