Malaysia Reaches 22nd Place in World Talent Ranking

Malaysia has been placed at 22 out of 63 countries in the International Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) World Talent Ranking of 2018. Malaysia climbed 6 spots, placing at 28 in last year’s ranking. Malaysia managed to surpass Japan (31), United Kingdom (23) and France (25).

Switzerland won the first place followed by Denmark and Norway. Singapore was placed at 13, one place below the United States.

The ranking is based on countries’ performance in three main categories:

• Investment and development

• Appeal

• Readiness

The three categories assess how countries perform in a wide range of areas, including education, apprenticeships, workplace training, language skills, cost of living, quality of life, remuneration and tax rates.

Malaysia's performance in the World Talent Ranking since 2014. Click on the pic for a larger version.

“Compared with last year, Singapore keeps the same position in the ranking and Malaysia moves up by six,” IMD said. IMD also said that Malaysia’s progress in the ranking was due to investment in education to develop its homegrown skilled workforce.

Malaysia fared well in several aspects of investment and development. It was ranked ninth for teacher-to-pupil ratio, sixth for apprenticeship and eighth for employee training. Overall, Malaysia is ranked 17, ahead of the US, Japan, France, Korea, UK and even Singapore which is ranked 34.

Malaysia also performed  well in terms of appeal. Under this category, the survey looked at criteria like cost of living, policies for attracting and retaining talent, brain drain and quality of life.

Malaysia’s relatively cheap living cost made it highly attractive, according to the survey, which ranked the country 10th in this aspect. It was also in the top 25 for talent retention. The report also described the country’s quality of life as “very high”. Malaysia also ranked 11 in terms of skilled labour availability and 21 for financial skills readiness.

Under the category of whether the educational system meets the needs of a competitive economy, Malaysia is ranked 31 and whether science is sufficiently emphasised in schools, it is ranked 24. As for government expenditure on education per student, it ranks 31.

However, Malaysia ranked 41 for performance in Programmes for International Students Assessments (PISA), an evaluation of how good a country’s pupils are in mathematics, science and reading.

The IMD World Talent Ranking

Singapore maintained its position at the 13th spot, scoring well in all three main categories. But the expensive cost of living there has made it less attractive to talent.
IMD has been assessing how the 63 economies develop, attract and retain highly-skilled professionals since 2014.

“The 2018 edition of the IMD World Talent Ranking confirms the trends we identified in the past: the most successful countries in talent competitiveness are mainly European, mid-size economies, with high levels of investment in education and quality of life. Furthermore, results suggest that the wealth of the country is not the only significant driver of talent competitiveness.

“In fact, indicators of social progress as well as the quality of institutions (e.g., adherence to the rule of law) are a strong foundation for attracting highly skilled professionals from the international talent pool.”

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