Portugal maintains 26th place in the world ranking of talent in 2021 – O Jornal Económico
Portugal is no longer part of the most competitive economies with regard to the development, attraction and retention of talent, maintaining its 26th position in the World Talent ranking of the IMD World Competitiveness Center 2021, released this Thursday, December 9th. The country obtained the best result ever in 2018: the 17th.
The “Investment & Development” of Talent is where Portugal loses more ground among the 64 analyzed economies, going from 22nd to 25th, again impacted by the limited commitment of companies in “Employee Training”. Education is even the main weakness pointed out to the country, which occupies the 60th place in the total of 64 analyzed economies.
On the positive side, the strong percentage that the country presents at the level of the female workforce stands out (49.5%), relative to its total workforce.
Despite having risen in the level of “Attractiveness” – from 33rd to 30th – of the three main factors, this is still the one where Portugal occupies the worst position, largely due to the low ranking in the criteria of “justice”, “employees’ motivation ”E“ output of people with good training and qualifications ”.
Finally, in the “Preparation” factor, the national economy lost only one position. Here, the main weakness recorded was the level of low “Workforce Growth”, while on the positive side, the good score for the quality of management training (“Management Education”) stood out, which recognisably corresponds to the demands and challenges of the business and companies. Also in terms of “Linguistic Skills”, Portugal scores very well.
Porto Business School is, for the sixth consecutive year, an exclusive partner of IMD for Portugal in defining this ranking. In an analysis of the results, Ramon O’Callaghan, the Dean of Porto Business School, says: “in a year in which all economies were impacted by the effects of the pandemic, Portugal was unable to become more competitive. Company leaders and managers must have the responsibility not to increase employee motivation, which is certainly impacted by factors such as salary, safety or quality of life, but also by the conditions that are given to professionals in terms of flexibility, requalification and use of the most advanced technology. ”
European countries reinforce global talent leadership
The ranking of the most competitive countries in world talent continues, for the fifth consecutive year, to be led by Switzerland (1st), followed by Sweden (2nd), which climbs three positions, and Luxembourg (3rd), which maintains its place from the previous year.
The Top 10 includes only European economies, in a ranking impacted by the pandemic and where company employees are more motivated in more competitive economies and less in non-competitive ones. Furthermore, there are improvements in East Asia and Central Asia, while North America, South Asia and the Pacific, West Asia, Africa, and South America have lost prominence.
Over the past five years, six of the 10 most successful economies in terms of special talent have been in Central and Eastern Europe. Ukraine, Hungary, Croatia, Estonia, Enia and Romania all climbed at least 10 places between 2017 and 2021. Ukraine is the country that has improved the most, rising 13 places to 46th place in 2021.
Methodology
The IMD World Talent Ranking assesses the status and development of competencies needed for companies and the economy to achieve long-term value creation. There are three main ways of grouping as research questions that executives in 64 economies are asked: (1) Attractiveness – the extent to which an economy attracts foreign talent and retains local talent; (2) Investment & Development – a measure of the specialized resources to cultivate a local workforce; and (3) Preparation – what is the quality of skills and competences that are available in a country’s talent pool.