View of Luxembourg City, one of the top five cities in the world for attracting talent, according to the Global Talent Competitiveness Index Photo: Shutterstock

View of Luxembourg City, one of the top five cities in the world for attracting talent, according to the Global Talent Competitiveness Index Photo: Shutterstock

The grand duchy remained in the top ten of the Global Talent Competitiveness Index published this week, with Switzerland, Singapore and the US topping the ranking.

Luxembourg ranked eighth in the index, receiving the same place as in the 2020 edition of the ranking. Singapore overtook the US to second place, with Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland ahead of the grand duchy. Norway and Iceland round off the top 10.

“Jobs linked to digital transformation and the greening of most sectors (finance, energy to transport, manufacturing and agriculture) will be in high demand across geographies,” said Felipe Monteiro, the index’s academic director, in a statement. “Top-ranked Switzerland and Singapore are speeding up transitions to a sustainable, future-proof economy […] These forward-looking nations are taking steps to build robust economies and societies.”

The index is published annually by Insead business school, measuring how countries and cities grow, attract and retain talent. It covers 134 countries and 155 cities from 75 economies around the world across different income groups and levels of development.

“Luxembourg (8th) claims the top spot when it comes to attracting talent, which is primarily a result of its world-beating External Openness (1st), but also of its high degree of Internal Openness (7th). The country is also a top performer in the Retain (6th) pillar, where its world-class pension system, environmental performance, and social protection contribute to excellent Sustainability (2nd),” the said.

“The country enjoys a high degree of entrepreneurship, which contributes to an impressive showing in the Talent Impact (3rd) sub-pillar and, ultimately, to a strong pool of Global Knowledge Skills (8th). Luxembourg’s pool of Vocational and Technical Skills (21st), meanwhile, is its main weakness, where improving Mid-Level Skills (34th) is a priority,” the study said further.

In the top cities ranking, Luxembourg’s capital scored highly in fifth place, behind San Francisco, Geneva, Boston and Zurich, but ahead of Dublin, Singapore, Seattle, London and Helsinki in the top ten.

Among its lowest scores in a list of six pillars and more than 60 different indicators were ease of doing business (67), women in tertiary education (81), women in high-skilled jobs (67), use of virtual social networks (68) and ease of finding skilled employees (68).

The report found a growing gap between top performing countries and those struggling to attract talent. This is increased, for example, by digital divides in the covid-19 era. But the pandemic has also opened up new ways of attracting skilled staff, the report said, for example allowing employees to work as digital nomads and improving work-life balance with the use of online tools.