Singapore dominates talent-competitiveness in Asia

It beat heavyweights like Sweden and USA, too.

Singapore dominates as the most talent-competitive economy in Asia, according to the latest World Talent Report by Swiss global business school IMD. Globally, Singapore was 10th in a ranking of 61 countries’ abilities to fulfill corporate needs, having soared 6 places upward from last year. Further, it’s the only Asian country in the top 10.

The report is an annual evaluation of how effectively nations attract, sustain, and nurture talent for the businesses functioning in their economies. The study specifically observes three main categories- investment and development, appeal, and readiness.

Across 61 countries, Singapore is second in readiness, 18th in appeal, and 29th in investment in development.

In the readiness factor, the country tops the science in schools indicator, and performs superbly in other indicators such as student mobility inbound (2), educational assessment (2), educational system (3), university education (3), and management education (3).

In the appeal factor, Singapore performed best in the foreign high skilled-people indicator with a ranking of 5. Other indicators in this factor reflected above average rankings as well, such as personal security and private property rights (6), attracting and retaining talents (9). renumeration of management (13), and quality of life (17). However, the country is landed in the bottom tenth of the cost-of-living index (58).

The study revealed that Singapore’s poorest performance was in the investment and development factor. Only one indicator ranked in the top ten, which was health infrastructure (3). Pupil-teacher ratio in secondary education (38) and in primary education (44), public expenditure on education per pupil (44) and total public expenditure on education (56) reflected the country’s shortcomings in fostering home-grown talent.

Singapore’s highest position in the World Talent Report was in 2008 when the country secured the second position. Its lowest was 17th in 2011 and 2013.

“The overall ranking pattern exhibited by Singapore seems to be the outcome of the investment and development factor results in combination with other indicators, such as the cost of living. In other words, despite improvement in 2015, Singapore’s results show a fair degree of imbalance between the criteria covering the home-grown talent pipeline and the ability of the country to attract overseas talent. The country thus fluctuates in and out of the top 10 talent ranking during the period under study,” said the report.

Overall, Singapore bested other heavyweights such as Sweden (11), Hong Kong (12), Australia (13) and USA (14).