European countries dominate the 2024 IMD World Talent Rankings.
Didier Marti | Moment | Getty Images
According to the IMD World Talent Ranking 2024, Switzerland ranks first among the world’s most competitive countries for talent for the eleventh consecutive year, demonstrating that despite the rapidly changing global work environment, Switzerland still has a strong and stable talent pool.
The ranking measures how well economies around the world are doing at maintaining their talent pools. This year, the list combines survey answers and hard data from the IMD World Competitiveness Center and external sources from 67 economies around the world.
The data is divided into three components: investment in and development of local talent, attractiveness (the extent to which a country taps into overseas talent pools) and readiness (the availability of skills and capabilities in the talent pool).
Here are the 10 most talent-competitive economies in the world:
- Switzerland
- Singapore
- Luxembourg
- Sweden
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Norway
- Netherlands
- Hongkong
- Austria
European countries dominate this year’s rankings, taking eight of the top 10 spots. Two Asian economies are also on the list, with Singapore and Hong Kong ranking second and ninth respectively.
However, the United States failed to crack the top ten this year and dropped six spots to 21st. Notably, the United States’ ranking in the attractiveness category also dropped from second place in 2020 to 14th in 2024, affected by the country’s cost of living and personal income tax rates.
The United States also dropped to 32nd in the readiness category this year. The country was rated below average in language skills or the availability of language skills to meet business needs, ranking 47th out of 67 economies globally.
Switzerland consistently ranks high in terms of talent competitiveness and has held the top spot since the rankings were launched in 2014.
The European country ranks high on a number of criteria including quality of life, health infrastructure, university education, legal minimum wage, and ability to attract highly skilled foreign talent.
Singapore also tops this year’s list. The city-state “has risen from 18th in 2014 to second this year and may challenge Switzerland’s dominance in the near future,” the report said.
Singapore’s steady rise is driven by the readiness of its talent pool, ranking first among ranked countries. The country also showed the least discrimination, ranking first in workforce growth, supply of skilled labor and supply of financial skills, the report said.
While AI can bring unparalleled efficiency and productivity, it also threatens widespread job displacement, especially in industries that rely on routine tasks and automation.
Jose Caballero
Senior Economist, IMD World Competitiveness Center
The impact of artificial intelligence on the global talent landscape
The 2024 WTR report titled “The Socioeconomic Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Workplace” also highlights the impact of artificial intelligence on the global talent landscape.
“The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming industries and reshaping the global economy in unprecedented ways,” José Caballero, senior economist at the IMD World Competitiveness Center, wrote in the report. Talent competitiveness creates opportunities and challenges.
“While artificial intelligence can bring unparalleled efficiency and productivity, it also threatens widespread job losses, especially in industries that rely on routine tasks and automation,” Caballero said.
Notably, this year’s report found that in Japan, Thailand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Canada, “senior executives believe that the most obvious manifestation of artificial intelligence in the workplace is that it is replacing humans. Discrimination was also found.” The growth of the economy,” said the IMD blog post.
“Integrating artificial intelligence into the workforce could introduce new forms of discrimination, such as biased algorithms, which could exacerbate existing inequalities and have broader consequences for marginalized communities,” Caballero said in the report. social impact.
For example, the report found that in high-income countries, women are more than twice as likely to have their employment affected by automation (7.9%) than men (2.9%).
Ultimately, while high-income economies are more likely to experience disruption and increased discrimination in the short term from the adoption of AI than lower-income economies, “they are also expected to reap greater overall benefits,” the report said.
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