THE Philippines went down six notches in the Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) World Talent Ranking (WTR) from 54th in 2022.
The country ranked 60th out of 64 countries in 2023. Its score was 35.81 out of 100.
Meanwhile, the Philippines is still one of the worst performers in Asia and the Pacific as it ranked second to the last in the region, or 13th out of the 14 countries.
“This year’s rankings also show that as economies become more service-oriented [a transformation process that has also reached China and India], the physical presence of employees in the country of their employers is no longer needed,” Arturo Bris, Director of the World Competitiveness Center (WCC) said.
Bris pointed to the emergence of a new type of employee who has been educated in one country, lives in another, and works for a company located in a third country. Such a phenomenon, Bris noted, has “implications” for fiscal rules and education systems.
The rankings were based on the scores and rankings of countries in 31 criteria that are measured and organized into three factors.
These factors include the Investment and Development factor, which considers the investment and development of home-grown talent.
Another is the Appeal factor, which is the extent to which a country taps into the overseas talent pool.
The last factor is Readiness, which assesses the quality of the available skills and competencies in the talent pool.
The ranking of the Philippines was the lowest in the Investment and Development factor at 62nd, followed by Appeal at 55th and Readiness, 51st overall.
Under Investment and Development, the country ranked poorly in terms of the total public expenditure on education per student at $367 per student. This placed the country 63rd in this criteria.
High in employee training
The criteria where the country ranked the highest under Investment and Development was employee training, which is a high priority in companies. This placed the country 37th overall in this criteria.
For Appeal, the country ranked the poorest in terms of quality of life, which is high. The country ranked 54th out of 64 countries in this criteria.
IMD’s data showed that among the criteria where the country did well was collection of personal income taxes, where it placed 17th overall.
Under Readiness, the country ranked the lowest in student mobility and education assessment—ranking 57th overall in both criteria.
The country ranked the best in terms of skilled labor—3rd out of 64 countries; and labor force growth, which placed the country 9th overall in this criteria.
“Adapting education systems to the needs of economic systems remains one of the big challenges of talent competitiveness,” Bris noted.
He said many “winners” in their ranking—such as Singapore, Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark—are also countries that emphasize professional training and apprenticeships over general academic subjects.
Moving forward, Bris said, “The future will tell us how to balance the benefits of digital transformation with the developmental needs of human talent.”
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