Who’s Winning the Talent War?

While overseas postings were once considered the fast track to career success, the recently published 2024 World Talent Ranking report from IMD’s World Competitiveness Center reveals that approximately 80% of multinational corporations have experienced a significant uptick in the number of leaders who are reluctant to accept assignments abroad.

Fueled by geopolitical uncertainty and financial turbulence, this situation is now exacerbating the war for talent and emphasizing the gap between the national winners and losers. Consequently, this, along with the demands of integrating AI into operations, is forcing companies to rethink their global talent strategies, potentially reshaping how business gets done across borders.

How talent is measured

IMD evaluates 67 economies on their ability to attract, develop, and retain talent. The ranking is based on three main factors:

Investment and development: how much countries invest in cultivating home-grown talent (education, training, apprenticeships).

Appeal: how attractive a country is to international talent (quality of life, pay and reward, national competitiveness).

Readiness: the availability of skills in the talent pool (skilled labour, finance/tech skills, international experience).

The IMD report highlights several barriers to talent attraction and retention. Perhaps the most obvious involves the cost of living, pay/reward and quality of life—high living costs (e.g., Singapore, UK, US cities) hurt talent retention despite strong job markets. Failure to equip people with the right skills for the AI-driven labour market is another barrier, often due to a mismatch of education vs market needs. IMD also note exclusion and discrimination as a barrier—economies where AI substitutes human labour most are seeing rising social exclusion which makes them less attractive to talent.

A vicious circle can exist as countries struggling to retain talent see weakened competitiveness (UK is a case in point) in turn leading to less attractiveness, even to a ‘brain drain’.

Winners and losers

IMD found the best performing countries exhibited consistent investment in education, inclusiveness, talent-friendly living conditions, strong corporate training.

The best performers in 2024 were:

Switzerland (rank 1): invests heavily in education and apprenticeships, strong health system, high quality of life, competitive pay, excellent worker motivation.

Singapore (rank 2): leads in readiness with abundant skilled labour, finance and tech skills, low tax-rates and the second highest per-capita GDP.

Nordics (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland): combine high-quality education, social inclusion, strong training culture, and quality of life.

Notably disappointments were:

USA (Rank 21, down 6 places). Strengths: large talent base, innovation-driven economy. Weaknesses: declining in appeal (quality of life, discrimination indicators), struggles with education investment relative to peers.

United Kingdom (Rank: 27, down 8). Strengths: strong universities, language attracts international managers. Weaknesses: low investment in education, weaker talent retention, declining absence of discrimination.

France (Rank: 24^th, stable). Strengths: robust investment in education, cultural appeal. Weaknesses: middling readiness (skills gaps), lower attractiveness to international talent compared to Northern Europe.

Talent competitiveness today depends not just on education or pay, but on AI-readiness, inclusiveness, and quality of life. Switzerland, Singapore, and Nordic countries lead by combining strong education systems, continuous upskilling, and social inclusivity.

The UK and USA are losing ground due to weak retention, rising exclusion, and under or misaligned investment in education, while France remains middling but more stable. AI is reshaping the playing field—enhancing productivity but risking deeper inequalities and talent flight unless managed carefully.

The effects of AI integration on workforce talent

The 2024 report finds that 58% of executives say AI mainly enhances tasks, with 12% saying it is already substituting tasks and reducing the workforce, and 7% reporting it drives quiet quitting or early retirement.

It also suggests that AI-caused workforce disruption is income-dependent and gender-specific. High-income economies face higher job displacement (up to 5.5% of jobs at risk vs 0.4% in low-income), and women in high-income countries are twice as likely as men to be affected by automation.

The IMD report's findings suggest likely future effects will include: i) Rising exclusion if AI adoption disproportionately affects vulnerable groups; ii) Polarization of skills as demand increases for creative, problem-solving, and AI-augmented roles, while routine jobs decline. The national competitiveness divide will increase as countries that reskill and integrate AI early, and reduce discrimination, will strengthen their talent edge.

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The World Talent Ranking report offers valuable direction to countries and companies aiming to improve their talent competitiveness. Furthermore, its findings around the effects of AI integration present significant policy challenges for governments which will need to balance company productivity gains with job creation and social stability.

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Access the ‘IMD 2024 World Talent Ranking’ report from the IMD World Competitiveness Center