Heru Andriyanto, Jakarta – Indonesia has climbed four places to rank 41st in the world talent ranking based on a survey by Swiss-based IMD Business School, beating Thailand and the Philippines but still lagging behind Singapore and Malaysia.

The ranking encompasses 63 economies around the world, measured by investment, development, appeal and readiness in developing, attracting and retaining talent.

"This year's improvement partly results from increasing positive executive opinions. For example, Indonesia increases in employee training (17th), the implementation of apprenticeship programs (9th), worker motivation (15th) and the availability of senior managers with international experience (19th)," Arturo Bris, IMD Business School's Head of Competitiveness and co-author of the report, said in an email to the Jakarta Globe on Saturday.

But Indonesia still has much lower ranks in student mobility inbound (61st), total public expenditure on education per student (60th), the female percentage of the total labor force (56th), Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) educational assessment ((53rd) and the percentage of graduates in sciences (50th), he said.

Indonesia could greatly improve its competitiveness by focusing on the investment and development factor, particularly on total public expenditure on education, he said.

Thailand meanwhile fell one place to 43rd as Indonesia outclassed its neighbor in the 'appeal' factor, particularly in prioritizing talent attraction and retention (29th, Thailand 35th), worker motivation (15th, Thailand 26th), brain drain (13th, Thailand 23rd), attractiveness for foreign highly-skilled personnel (19th, Thailand 29th) and pollution measures (36th, Thailand 55th).

For the first time after six editions of the survey, Singapore rose the world's top ten as it scores highest globally for talent 'readiness', in areas such as PISA educational assessment (1st), percentage of graduates in sciences (2nd), the effectiveness of the primary and secondary education (3rd) and student mobility inbound (3rd).

Denmark is the world's leading economy for 'investment and development', while Switzerland tops the world economy for 'appeal'.

Overall, Switzerland retains its title as the world's top talent hub, and Europe leading the way in fostering the best conditions for competitiveness in a skills-scarce global economy, according to the report.

The IMD World Talent Ranking assesses the status and the development of competencies necessary for enterprises and the economy to achieve long term value creation.

Source: https://jakartaglobe.id/business/indonesia-climbs-to-41st-in-world-talent-ranking