By PAUL ICAMINA
The Philippines fell six spots from 54th in 2022 to 60th this year in overall in talent competitiveness among 64 countries ranked by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD).
In Asia and the Pacific, the Philippines was ranked 13th, with Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia taking the top three spots.
The World Talent Ranking (WTR) showed the Philippines’ strengths are in skilled labor, labor force growth and cost-of-living index.
Its weaknesses are in public expenditure on education per student, pupil-teacher ratio in secondary education and low inbound of student mobility, according to the report.
The rankings were released yesterday by IMD, a business school in Lausanne, Switzerland, that focuses on training and developing general management and leadership skills.
The 2023 WTR – which included Kuwait for the first time — used 31 criteria that involve both hard data and survey responses from executives.
Each criterion was then organized into three factors: investment and development, appeal and readiness.
In readiness, the Philippines ranked 51st this year from 35th in 2022, and from 43rd to 55th in appeal. It is consistently ranked in investment and development at 62nd in 2022 and this year.
In investment and development, the Philippines got a positive score in employee training as a priority in companies, but ranked low in health infrastructure, public expenditure on education, expenditure on education per student, and teacher to pupil ratio.
As to appeal, the Philippines ranked highest in collected income tax but scored poorly in quality of life, brain drain, attracting and retaining talents, worker motivation and cost of living.
It scored on the median line in justice (fairly administered), exposure to particle pollution and statutory minimum wage.
The Philippines ranked a high 9 in labor force growth and a score of 3 in skilled labor as well as competent senior managers (28), language skills, graduates in science, and finance skills.
Switzerland continued its worldwide talent competitiveness dominance, remaining in the top position since the IMD rankings started in 2014. Luxembourg moved up to second place, while Iceland retained the third spot.
