Philippines falls two notches in global talent index

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines ranked 56th out of 109 economies in the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) 2015-2016 released yesterday by the Adecco Group and the Human Capital Leadership Institute of Singapore, which measured a country’s ability to compete for talent.

The country’s ranking in the annual study fell two notches from the 54th spot it held in the 2014 list.

“Despite having a good degree of social mobility and also tolerance towards minorities and migrants, the Philippines does not attract many migrants – the external openness sub-pillar (68th) still has ample room for improvement,” the GTCI report said.

“The country receives a relatively large amount of foreign direct investments and technology transfers but it needs to catch up on other fronts, notably the formal education sub-pillar (75th) – particularly in terms of quality and enrollment,” it added.

The report, however, showed the country performed well in the pillars grow (47th) and global knowledge skills (33rd).

The grow pillar includes access to growth opportunities, formal education, lifelong learning while the global knowledge skills pillar includes competencies, higher skills, and talent impact.

The GTCI measured countries based on four pillars on the input side focusing on actions for policymakers and business leaders, and another two on the output pillars which benchmarks national performances in labor, vocational, and global knowledge skills.

The top three countries ranked on talent competitiveness are Switzerland at number one, followed by Singapore and Luxembourg in second and third places, respectively, remaining the same as in 2014.

“Countries ranked in the top 10 clearly demonstrated openness in terms of talent mobility – close to 25 percent of the respective populations of Switzerland and Luxembourg were born abroad; the proportion is even 43 percent in Singapore. The proportion is also significant in the United States (fourth), Canada (ninth), New Zealand (11th), Austria (15th), and Ireland (16th),” the report said.

“Mobility is vital to fill skill gaps, and a high proportion of innovative, entrepreneurial people were born or studied abroad. It is hence not surprising that top ranking countries have positioned themselves as desirable destinations for high-skilled workers,” it added.