Brazil Losing the Fight for Talent, Warns New Report

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, November 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

IMD business school's World Competitiveness Center releases 2^nd annual World Talent Report 

Latin America's most powerful economy is losing its ability to develop, attract and retain the talent required to serve the business world.

The latest World Talent Report from leading global business school IMD shows Brazil has slipped to 57th place in a ranking of countries' ability to meet corporate needs.

The report represents an annual assessment of how effectively countries are able to nurture and sustain talent for the businesses operating within their economies.

Brazil, which came 52nd last year and is now just four places from the bottom spot, has experienced a decline in a range of relevant performance indicators.

Professor Arturo Bris, Director of IMD's World Competitiveness Center, which carried out the study, said: "Pure economic power and talent don't always go hand-in-hand.

"The key attribute among all the countries that rank highly in our standings is agility, as shown in their capacity to shape policies that preserve their talent pipeline.

"In this regard, perhaps understandably, Brazil and other developing Latin economies are still decidedly lacking in comparison with their developed counterparts.

"But what should be of particular concern to Brazil is that the situation appears to be deteriorating rather than improving. Needless to say, this trend has to be reversed."

Other Latin American economies also struggled, with Chile 43rd, Mexico 49th, Colombia 50th, Argentina 53rd, Peru 59th and Venezuela 60th. Although Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Colombia have slightly improved their positions this year, all Latin American countries in the study place in the bottom third of the ranking.

Several major economies also fared disappointingly, with the US languishing in 14th place, the UK 21st, France 27th and mainland China way down in the 40th spot.

Switzerland topped the rankings - as it did last year - followed by Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Canada, Belgium and Singapore.

Rankings are based on 20 years' worth of competitiveness-related data, including an in-depth survey of more than 4,000 executives in the 61 countries covered by the study.

The research focuses on three main categories - investment/development, appeal and readiness - which in turn are derived from other factors including education, apprenticeship, employee training, brain-drain, cost of living, worker motivation, quality of life, language skills, remuneration and tax rates.

The main categories are aggregated into a yearly overall ranking. In addition, each country's evolution in the various aspects is assessed over the course of a decade - in this instance from 2005 to 2015 - to identify the most talent-competitive countries.

About IMD 

The IMD World Competitiveness Center is a part of IMD business school and also publishes the annual World Competitiveness Yearbook. The IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook has been published since 1989 and is widely acknowledged as the leading annual report on the competitiveness of countries.

For a copy of the full World Talent Report 2015 (PDF) contact: Aicha Besser, +41-21-618-0507 aicha.besser@imd.org