HK drops two places in world talent rankings

Hong Kong has fallen two places to 16th in the latest World Talent Ranking by Swiss IMD Business School, and ranked second in Asia behind Singapore.

The report compared 64 economies on three aspects - investment and development, appeal and readiness.

Hong Kong ranked sixth in readiness for talents - the highest among the three aspects. But the SAR suffered setbacks as it ranked the first in 2021 and the third last year, mainly due to a 2.43 percent drop in labor force.

The report said Hong Kong still has advantages in the local talents' finance skills and a higher number of science graduates studying information and communications technology, engineering, math and natural sciences.

Hong Kong students also perform well in the Program for International Student Assessment - a worldwide study to evaluate educational systems by measuring 15-year-old students' performance in mathematics, science, and reading, the report said.

In investment and development of talents, the SAR fell from 13th last year to 15th this year with a major weakness of low public expenditure on education.

Hong Kong remains at 32nd in appeal to talents due to a high living cost and serious brain drain. But the city offers high remuneration of management, the report said. Western Europe continues to lead the talent ranking, followed by North America and Eastern Asia.

"The results show, however, a long-lasting effect of the pandemic. Most of the regions we study have not been able to return to the pre-pandemic levels of talent competitiveness," it said.

The Covid-19 pandemic has ushered in significant transformations in labor markets with the widespread adoption of hybrid work models.

It said opinion polls and research show employees increasingly favor remote and hybrid work arrangements.

However, the report noted that a number of companies have begun reverting to more traditional five-days-in-office working models as they believe elements such as corporate culture, team building, creativity, and workers' career development are being negatively affected by remote work arrangements.

Switzerland remains at the top of the overall talent ranking, followed by Luxembourg and Iceland, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Singapore has joined the top 10 to rank eighth, up from 12th, its highest in the ranking. "This improvement is mainly driven by Singapore's performance in the readiness factor. It ranks 14th in the appeal factor and 31st in the investment and development factor," the report said.