Global Talent Risks Report 2011
Posted by Celia Walter | 11 Jan, 2011Industries and countries worldwide will require major increases of highly educated people in their workforces to sustain economic growth, argues a new report prepared by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The report, Global Talent Risk – Seven Responses, analyses projected talent shortages by 2020 and 2030 in 25 countries, 13 industries and 9 occupational clusters.
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/PS_WEF_GlobalTalentRisk_Report_2011.pdfThe report concludes that:
• Demand will be
biggest for highly educated professionals, technicians and managers.
Professionals will be in particularly high demand in trade, transport
and communications industries in developing nations.
• In the next
two decades demand for professionals in manufacturing will peak at more
than 10% in developing countries, exceeding 4% across all countries
sampled (labour demand growth rates are compounded annually).
• Healthcare research and development alone will generate an enormous demand for skilled labour worldwide.
• Employees without critical knowledge and technical skills will be left behind.
If left unaddressed, talent scarcity will become a threat to sustained growth particularly in knowledge-based economies. “Human capital has replaced financial capital as the engine of economic prosperity,” said Hans-Paul Bürkner, Chief Executive Officer and President, The Boston Consulting Group.
The roots of the global talent risk include the
widely uneven quality of educational systems, erratic employability of
the workers in the Southern Hemisphere and demographic changes in the
Northern Hemisphere, where retirement of the baby boomers will result
with an unprecedented talent deficit. In the United States, Germany,
Canada and the United Kingdom, expected immigration and birth rates
will not offset the workforce losses caused by ageing populations.
Today, foreign-born workers with university degrees or equivalent
qualifications make up just 2% of the European labour market, compared
with 4.5% in the United States and nearly 10% in Canada. Improved
education and training must go hand in hand with increased labour
migration.
“The global problem is no longer a mere talent mismatch.
The scale of the predicted talent gap requires concerted action,
starting with – and going well beyond – removing barriers to the
mobility of talent,” said Piers Cumberlege, Head of Partnership, World
Economic Forum.
The report proposes seven core responses to global talent risk:
1. Introduce strategic workforce planning to address imbalances between labour supply and demand
2. Ease migration to attract the right talent globally
3. Foster “brain circulation” to mitigate brain drain
4. Increase employability by advancing technological literacy and cross-cultural learning skills
5. Develop a talent “trellis” by focusing on horizontal and vertical career and education paths
6. Encourage temporary and virtual mobility to access required skills easily
7. Extend the pool by tapping women, older professionals, the disadvantaged and immigrants
Members
of the Global Agenda Council on Skills and Talent Mobility as well as
over 100 high-level experts and practitioners contributed to the
recommendations in the report and to the talent mobility dialogue
hosted by the Forum online and at meetings in Brussels, Doha,
Davos-Klosters, Dubai, Montreal, New Delhi and New York in 2009-2010.
At
its Annual Meeting 2011 in Davos-Klosters, the World Economic Forum
will seek to catalyse a pragmatic, result-driven action focused on
effective sharing of good practices.
For more information on the Global Talent Risk – Seven Responses report, please contact:
• Anna Janczak, Associate Director, Head of Professional Services, World Economic Forum, by telephone at
+1 917 7562 0533 or by e-mail at anna.janczak@weforum.org
• Eric Gregoire, Global Media Relations Manager, The Boston Consulting Group, by telephone at
+1 617 850 3783 or by e-mail at gregoire.eric@bcg.com