Qatar has been ranked 34th in the 2022 IMD World Talent Ranking produced by the World Competitiveness Center (WCC), part of the International Institute for Management Development (IMD).
The latest reports show Qatar dropped three places to its current position out of 63 economies surveyed.
According to the rankings in its 9th edition, the unpredictable nature of talent migration means that governments and businesses have to attract local and foreign talent by boosting the overall appeal of their economies. Qatar was ranked 24th in 2018, and 26th, 29th, 31st and 34th in the last four reports, respectively.
In the investment and development of home talent category, Qatar ranked 44th, second in the region behind Saudi Arabia and ahead of the UAE. In the availability of skills and competencies in the talent pool, Qatar finished in 30th place, while in appeal to global talent, the country ranked 22nd, going up three spots from the previous year.
Qatar’s infrastructure development and economic diversification have made the country a hotbed for global talent, while the investment in education and human development powered by the Qatar National Vision 2030 (QNV) pillars has ensured local talents are nurtured and promoted.
In a press statement, Professor Arturo Bris, Director of the WCC, said, “In the future, national education systems will become less important to determine the quality of the talent pool. This is the result of talent globalisation and countries borrowing successful educational policies from others and the resulting race to the top in education.”
“Indirectly, quality of life and economic sustainability will indeed determine the quality of the talent pool as well. There will be winners and losers,” he added.
According to the report, WTR studies 63 economies by quantifying 31 criteria (a mixture of hard data and survey responses from executives) to assess countries’ ripeness for fostering long-term value creation for their enterprises and the economy via their workforce.
Switzerland, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Austria, Netherlands and Germany make up the top 10. In the Gulf, the UAE (21), Saudi Arabia (30), Qatar (34), and Bahrain (35) were top-ranked as Saudi Arabia (up eight places since 2021, at 30th) was the economy that improved its appeal to talent most between 2019 and 2022 among the 63 studied, the researchers found.
The US (down two places at 16th), Canada, the UAE, Denmark, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Africa, and Venezuela display the largest declines in their appeal to talent.
