The 2019 Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) has identified Luxembourg as 10th among 125 countries in the areas of global knowledge skills and attracting and retaining competitiveness.
The recent GTCI identified entrepreneurial talent as a key differentiator in relative talent competitiveness and showed how talent is still drawn to small, high-income economies like Luxembourg. It was in this context that the Grand Duchy ranked 10th in the international country ranking as a highly innovative and entrepreneurial country. This resulted from the country's strength in three key pillars: attract, retain and global knowledge skills.
As a small country that has built an international reputation as a centre of finance and industry, Luxembourg is one of the leading countries in the world with respect to both talent impact and new product entrepreneurial activity. Luxembourg thus also reached first place internationally in 5 variables: ICT infrastructure, international students, pension system, professionals and new product entrepreneurial activity. Luxembourg excelled as well at retaining its domestic talent (8th in this pillar) and possesses a competitive pool of global knowledge skills (9th) that rests on it being a highly innovative and entrepreneurial country. Luxembourg’s weakest performance concerned its pool of vocational and technical skills, which is dampened by a sub-par ability to match labour market demand and workforce supply.
Beyond Luxembourg, the report revealed that Switzerland, Singapore and the United States continue to lead the world in talent competitiveness, while countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa are seeing a progressive erosion of their talent base. The report similarly confirmed that talent issues have become a mainstream concern for firms, nations and cities, with talent performance seen as a critical factor to growth and prosperity.
This year’s report has a special focus on entrepreneurial talent - how it is being encouraged, nurtured and developed throughout the world and how this affects the relative competitiveness of different economies. Indeed, new approaches are emerging to stimulate entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial talent and futureproof employees. Such progress is especially true in cities where ‘Smart cities’ ecosystems are increasingly acting as talent magnets. The results further showed that the highest-ranking countries and cities tend to be the most open to entrepreneurial talent and that digitalisation and globalisation are increasing the role of this talent.
Another significant finding was that the gap separating the talent champions from the rest of the global community has been growing. Talent competitiveness is strengthening in groups of countries where it is already comparatively high and weakening in those where it is relatively low. The report, published by INSEAD, the Business School for the World, in partnership with the Adecco Group and Tata Communications, is a comprehensive annual benchmarking measuring how countries and cities grow, attract and retain talent. It measures levels of Global Talent Competitiveness by looking at 68 variables. The 2019 index covers 125 national economies and 114 cities across all groups of income and levels of development.
