THE Philippines improved its ranking by six notches in the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Talent Rankings (WTR) in 2019.
The country was considered one of the biggest “climbers” in the ranking as it improved its position to 49th out of 63 countries in 2019 from 55th in 2018.
However, the country remained the laggard among its Asean peers as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand took the 10th, 22nd, 41st, and 43rd spot in this year’s ranking.
“The WTR ranks countries based on their ability to attract, develop, and retain a talented pool of human resources that businesses can employ,” IMD and its Philippine partner, Asian Institute of Management (AIM) RSN Policy Center for Competitiveness, said in a statement.
The 2019 edition ranked countries using 32 criteria grouped into three factors—Investment and Development, Appeal, and Readiness.
The Philippines improved its ranking in all three factors. However, the factor where the country has consistently been a poor performer is Investment and Development.
The factor measures the level of investment in and development of domestic, homegrown human resources. This year, the country ranked 61st out of 63 countries.
“This represents a one-place improvement from 2018, but this factor has consistently ranked in the 60s,” IMD-AIM said.
“Its low rank was mostly driven by pupil-teacher ratio in primary and secondary education and public expenditure on education per student,” it added.
Based on the report, the Philippines ranked poorly in total public expenditure on education per student at 61st. The data showed the total public investment was only at $376 or P18,800 per student.
Further, the poor performance in this factor was contributed by pupil-teacher ratio (primary education) where the country ranked 59th; pupil-teacher ratio (secondary education), 57th; and government expenditure on education per student, 56th.
For primary education, the pupil-teacher ratio in the country was 29.08, while for secondary, it was 23.88.
Data also showed the total government spending on education per student as a percentage of GDP is only 10.1 percent.
Appeal
Meanwhile, in terms of appeal, the country’s performance improved to 31st in 2019 from 38th in 2018.
IMD and AIM defined appeal as the measure of the country’s ability to attract and retain high-quality human resources from abroad.
The country ranked the highest in terms of effective personal income tax rate at eighth overall and the cost-of-living index at 15th overall.
The indicator with the lowest ranking under appeal was quality of life at 49th; justice, 48th; and brain drain, 47th.
High in ‘readiness’
Meanwhile, the country ranked the highest in Readiness at 26th overall in 2019 from 37th in 2018.
In terms of readiness, the quality and growth of the existing talent pool in the economy, the country ranked the highest in skilled labor, 3rd; graduates in sciences, thirteenth; and language skills, 16th overall.
The lowest indicator is student mobility inbound, which is the number of foreign tertiary-level students per 1,000 inhabitants. The country ranked 56th overall.
“Most leading economies emphasize long-term talent development by focusing on investment and development. This emphasis, however, goes beyond purely academic aspects to encompass the effective implementation of apprenticeships and employee training. Such an approach ensures a consistent alignment between talent demand and supply,” said Professor Arturo Bris, director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center.
The sixth edition of the IMD World Talent Ranking had Switzerland at top place overall, and placed Denmark in second and Sweden, up five spots, in third.
The top 10 was completed by Austria (4th), Luxembourg (5th), Norway (6th), Iceland (7th), Finland (8th), the Netherlands (9th) and Singapore (10th).
The top of the ranking is dominated by small and mid-sized European countries. These economies all share strong levels of investment in education and a high quality of life.
With the exception of Estonia and Lithuania, eastern European economies placed in the lower half of the ranking.
Outside the top 10, the biggest climbers were Taiwan, China (20th), Lithuania (28th), Philippines (49th) and Colombia (54th).
According to the ranking, Switzerland leads the world in the “appeal”’ factor and in areas, such as apprenticeships, health infrastructure, remuneration, attracting highly skilled foreign workers, and university and management education.
Denmark is the world’s leading economy for “investment and development,” while Singapore—the only non-European nation in the top 10 —scores highest globally for talent “readiness.”
In the Philippines, the WTR is a publication of the IMD with the Asian Institute of Management RSN Policy Center for Competitiveness as its Philippine partner.It is an offshoot publication of the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY).