The Adecco Group, INSEAD and Tata Communications reveals the 2019 Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI), an annual benchmarking tool ranking countries and major cities on their ability to develop, attract and retain talent.
The top 3 country remains the same as previous year with Switzerland ranked at the top, followed by Singapore and the United States.
For Thailand, the country takes a big step moving from 70th to 66th in the global rank and becomes the 4th in AEC countries.
Looking through the six dimension of the index which are Enable, Attract, Grow, Retain, Vocational Skills and Global Knowledge Skills, the results show that Thailand performs well in the “Global Knowledge Skills”, “Vocational & Technical Skills” and “Enable”. These three pillars help in creating a significant shift in the GTCI rank this year.
As for Thailand’s Global Knowledge Skills, it has moved up impressively, from 68th to 58t, on its ability to increase “new product entrepreneurial activities”. The increased levels of the innovation have been benefitted from the expansion of the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), that 98.1% of its business are SMEs which leads to more opportunities for new entrepreneurs to compete in developing new products and services.
Simultaneously, Thailand’s Vocational & Technical Skills are also in a better position. The results confirm that Thailand’s skilled labor development is accelerating. The labor productivity per employee is correspondingly higher. The workforce in both tertiary education and secondary education levels has the required skills to meet market demands. These are the main factors that elevate Thailand talent competitiveness in vocational skills to the rank of 83th, from 89th.
Furthermore, Thailand also shows strong performance in the enable pillar with the ability to enable talent boosted by a solid business opportunities and labor landscape. This bring Thailand to ascend its rank from 48th to 47th this year.
Adecco Thailand Executive suggests improving skills to enhance the talent competitiveness in the digital age
Tidarat Kanchanawat, Country Director - Adecco Group Thailand stated “The overall result of Thailand's Talent Competitiveness Index is moving in a better direction, showing talent impact in both vocational skills and global knowledge skills development. It seems promising that Thailand has been developing our Human Resources in the right direction as improving human abilities is the key success for the talent competitiveness in the digital era”
“This year’s global trend also point out that entrepreneurial skills play an important role in this digital era. Talking about entrepreneurial skills, it doesn’t mean the ability to leave a current job and start your own company from scratch. But it refers to the skills that an entrepreneur should have, especially the innovative thinking skills which are used in innovating and developing new products or services as well as in enhancing the customer experience. The insight of the reports also indicates that the top-ranked countries are thriving for people with entrepreneurship as they are seen as the vital workforce to digitalize the organization in a digital age”
“We are living in a digital world that is changing rapidly. Today, many organizations have suffered from the lack of employees with digital knowledge skills. Recruiting digital skilled personnel is often costly and takes much time to find the right people. Hence, to find the long-term solutions, the organization should focus on reskilling and upskilling the entrepreneurial skills and digital skills to their workforce. In doing this, it is not only resolving personnel issues, but also reducing the cost of recruiting. And when the employees are more talented, they will enhance the company competitiveness as well which is considering as a win-win situation for both organizations and employees.”