SWITZERLAND TOPS THE TALENT RANKING

Switzerland leads the 5th consecutive edition of the IMD World Talent Ranking 

The 2018 edition of one of the world’s foremost reports on the quality of international workforces has been released, with Western Europe dominating the top-10 Switzerland in first and Denmark in second, firmly lead the IMD World Talent Ranking 2018 for the fifth year in a row, followed by Norway, Austria and the Netherlands. 
Norway joins the top three, advancing four places up from last year, thanks to an improvement in public expenditure on education and the readiness of its talent pool. Canada (6th), Finland (7th), Sweden (8th), Luxembourg (9th), and Germany (10th) complete the top 10. 
The IMD World Talent Ranking 2018, which has just been released from the Singapore edition of IMD’s signature program Orchestrating Winning Performance (OWP), evaluates the capability of 63 countries in developing, attracting and retaining talent. The assessment is based on three factors: Investment and Development, Appeal, and Readiness. These factors include indicators that capture the resources invested in developing local talent, the extent to which a country attracts and retains talent, and the quality of skills available in the talent pool. Hard data and responses to the IMD Executive Opinion Survey are used to produce the ranking. The latter annual survey compiles input from over six thousand executives based in 63 different economies. 
Canada (6th) is the only non-European country in the top ten, rising from 11th place, lifted by an improvement in the quality of its talent pool. The USA (12th) also moves up with respect to last year showing advancements in all three talent factors. 

Switzerland 

Switzerland tops the talent ranking for the fifth consecutive year confirming its role as an important global talent hub. It ranks 4th in Investment and Development, and 1st in both the Appeal and Readiness factors. The country ranks 1st in apprenticeships, health infrastructure, highly-skilled foreign personnel, remuneration in the services professions, remuneration of management, the education system, university education and management education. Other strengths include international experience (2nd), retaining human capital (2nd), and quality of life (3rd). The latter, however, shows a slight decline this year. 
Switzerland’s lowest rankings at the indicator level are in cost-of-living (59th), labor force growth (38th), pupil-teacher ratio in primary education (30th) and female labor force (26th). There has been an increase in negative perceptions of the prioritization that the private sector gives to attracting and retaining talent which drops to 12th (from 4th). 

Read the full story and download the report on IMD's website