Indonesia ranked 77th out of 119 countries, which is a leap from last year’s 90th position.
According to the study, Indonesia has strong employability, as through vocational education and technical training it prepares domestic talents to match the skills needed by the economy.
Despite the position rise, however, the largest economy in Southeast Asia still lags behind Singapore, which ranks second, Malaysia (27th), the Philippines (54th) and Thailand (70th).
The Global Talent Competitiveness Index considers four “pillars” called “enable” (reflecting a country’s regulations and markets), “attract” (reflecting a country’s capability to lure resources), “grow” (reflecting the ability to improve self-competence through education and training), and “retain” (reflecting an ability to maintain domestic and overseas talent).
The report said Indonesia has a lot of homework “to catch up on all the pillars” to cultivate a talent pool large and competitive enough to support its growth in the competitive global economy.
The index drew data from public sources: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) for quantitative data; the World Bank’s World Governance Indicators and Doing Business Report for composite indicator data; and the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion for survey data.
This year’s report highlighted the critical role diversity plays in linking talent policies to innovation strategies to increase talent competitiveness.
“Eventually, diversity has come to be understood as an essential enhancer of corporate productivity and performance. Recruiting the best talent is essential. But evidence shows that diversity can actually trump talent,” Alain Dehaze, chief executive officer of Adecco Group, said in a statement.
According to the report, diversity can be a national resource, as it will create innovative and competitive working environments, especially in the era of automation, which makes people with different knowledge and experience join together in problem solving.
“If there is a high diversity of social mobility … then the richness of knowledge, perspective and networks pushes economic performance even higher via increased innovation,” Insead said in the report.
Developed, high-income countries continue to top the ranking, 15 of them being European countries with well-developed education systems, flexible business regulators, employment policies highlighting adaptability, social protection and internal and external openness.
