As a result of a drop in almost all talent indicators, Malaysia dropped to 15th place – from 5th place last year – in this year’s IMD World Talent Ranking.

It also lost its place in the top spot in the Asia Pacific region to Singapore.

The ranking takes into consideration three talent indicators, namely the country’s readiness factor, appeal factor and investment and development factor.

Under the readiness factor, indicators include labor force growth, skilled labor, finance skills, international experience, competent senior managers, educational system and management education.

The appeal factor takes into account indicators such as cost of living, attracting and retaining, worker motivation, brain drain, quality of life and the ability of companies to attract and retain staff.

Lastly, the investment and development factor takes into account things such as the presence of apprenticeships, employee training and female labor force.

Malaysia’s drop in ranking was a result of a decline in almost all talent indicators – Malaysia ranked 16th for readiness, 19th for appeal and 13th for investment and development.

Globally, Switzerland took the top spot, followed by Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway and the Netherlands rounding up the top five.

Finland, Germany, Canada, Belgium and Singapore completed the top 10.

In Asia Pacific, Singapore (10) emerged first in the region, followed by Hong Kong (12), Australia (13), Malaysia (15) and New Zealand (18).

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Within the readiness factor, Malaysia experienced declines in the scores of all areas – the employee training criterion (7.71 to 7.33), the availability of skilled labor (6.95 to 6.66), access to finance skills (7.40 to 7.30), international experience of its senior managers (7.23 to 6.62), access to competent senior managers (7.44 to 6.44) as well as the ability of the country’s educational institutions to meet the talent requirement of the market.

The educational system indicator dropped from 6.86 to 6.70.

A similar pattern was seen in its appeal factor with scores dropping in areas such as level of worker motivation (7.68 to 7.08), brain drain as a hindrance to the competitiveness of the country (6.51 to 5.71) and quality of life (7.48 to 7.36).

Thankfully, the ability of the country’s companies to attract and retain talents increased in 2015 from 7.46 to 7.70.

This upward trend continued in the percentage of the country’s female labour force (36.06% to 38.43%) under the investment and development factor.

Here are the top 20 economies this year and their change in ranking from 2014.

1 Switzerland (no change)
2 Denmark (no change)
3 Luxembourg (+10)
4 Norway (+6)
5 Netherlands (+2)
6 Finland (-2)
7 Germany (-4)
8 Canada (no change)
9 Belgium (+8)
10 Singapore (+6)
11 Sweden (-2)
12 China Hong Kong (+9)
13 Australia (+6)
14 USA (-2)
15 Malaysia (-10)
16 Ireland (-10)
17 Iceland (-3)
18 New Zealand (+8)
19 Austria (-8)
20 UAE (-5)

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