Luxembourg best in the world for attracting talent

Ranked 8th in the 2021 Global Talent Competitiveness Index, Luxembourg is clearly a top performer in attracting talent. The country ranks 1st in the world for its ability to attract, and 6th for its ability to retain talent.

Having a skilled and talented workforce is a key factor for countries to be competitive. In order to succeed, countries need to combine their ability to grow better talent with their capacity to attract the talent they need and retain those workers who contribute to competitiveness, innovation and growth.

The Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2021 provides a snapshot of how different territories perform and of their strengths and areas of improvement. Switzerland, Singapore and the United States top the ranking, with Luxembourg in 8th place.

Attracting talent through exceptional external openness

The ranking is based on two main dimensions:

• Input: the ability to enable, attract, grow and retain talent
• Output: the development of vocational and technical skills (considered as mid-level skills) and global knowledge skills (high-level skills)

Luxembourg ranks 1st in the world for its ability to attract talent. According to the report, this is primarily a result of its world-beating external openness, but also of its high degree of internal openness. It is also a top performer in the retain pillar (6th), where its world-class pension system, environmental performance, and social protection contribute to excellent sustainability.

A strong pool of global knowledge skills

The report further points out that Luxembourg 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).

According to its analysis, its main weakness is its pool of vocational and technical skills, for which it only ranks 21st among the 134 countries surveyed.