PH drops to 57th place in IMD World Talent Ranking
The Philippines dropped nine spots to 57th place in the IMD World Talent Ranking 2021 report as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the government’s efforts in supporting the education sector.
According to IMD World Competitiveness Center, the annual global ranking measures the country’s efforts in developing domestic talent “while tapping into the overseas pipeline so as to be able to satisfy the market’s demands for talent.”
The rankings are based on three categories — “appeal” or how an economy attracts foreign and retains local talent, “investment and development” which refers to resources used to develop the local workforce, and “readiness” or the quality of the skills in the talent pool.
The Philippines failed to retain its previous spots in all three factors, falling to 43rd place in appeal, 47h in readiness, and 62nd place in investment and development”.
Aside from the pandemic, the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) Senior Economist Cid L. Terosa said that this can be ascribed to the government’s “relatively weak” support for the education sector.
Terosa added that a lower IMD ranking can affect the country’s economic recovery since the “talents, education, skills, and training of Filipinos will determine whether more of them will be productively employed in the new normal.”
