Singapore loses global competitiveness in talent retention

Hong Kong dethrones Singapore as Asia's top representative in world ranking.

Asia risks losing its competitiveness on the world stage if it continues to neglect the development of its own business talent, a new study has shown.For the second year in a row, the region has just one representative in the top 10 of the World Talent Ranking, produced by global business school IMD.

The annual report assesses how dozens of countries develop, attract and retain the talent pool necessary for businesses to maximize their performance.

It draws on more than two decades’ worth of competitiveness-related data from the IMD World Competitiveness Center and includes an in-depth survey of thousands of executives in the 61 countries studied.

Hong Kong claims 10th spot in this year’s ranking, gaining two positions since 2015, but every other Asian economy has lost ground during the past 12 months.

Singapore – the region’s only top-10 entry last year – has fallen five places to 15th, Malaysia from 15th to 19th, Taiwan from 23rd to 24th and Thailand from 34th to 37th.

Professor Arturo Bris, director of IMD’s World Competitiveness Center said Singapore’s slide out of the elite over the past year was driven mainly by its failure to invest sufficiently in both primary and secondary education.

Despite its standing as one of the world’s most powerful economies, mainland China is down in 43rd – a fall of three positions – with Indonesia a further place behind.

Rankings are aggregated from performance in three overarching categories –investment/development, appeal and readiness – compiled from a wide range of factors.

These include education, apprenticeship, employee training, worker motivation, language skills, cost of living, quality of life, pay, tax rates and brain-drain.

Each country’s evolution in the various aspects is also assessed over the course of the past decade – during which Switzerland has placed first every year.

Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Austria, Luxembourg and Hong Kong – just ahead of Germany – make up the 2016 top 10.