New Zealand has been branded a global leader in its ability to enable and attract talent, in the Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2019, compiled by Insead.
The report ranked New Zealand in fourth place in its ability to enable talent and fifth place for its ability to attract talent, saying: "[New Zealand's ability to attract both foreign and domestic talent is strong (ranking 7th in both external openness and internal openness), while it performs particularly well in the enable sub-pillars related to regulatory landscape (2nd) and business and labour landscape (6th)."
New Zealand was ranked 11th overall, one notch ahead of Australia. It has improved its ranking from 15th in 2014 -2016, and from 12th position in 2017, when it was two spots behind Australia.
New Zealand was also ranked first for ease of doing business, but the report said there was room for improvement in measures such as competition intensity and cluster development. New Zealand was ranked 42nd in both these.
The report added: "The pillar that is holding back New Zealand’s overall rank the most is vocational and technical skills (20th), where a relatively weak pool of mid-level skills (41st) suggests the need for additional efforts to raise secondary education and improve vocational and technical training."
The Index in its sixth year has been produced in partnership with the Adecco Group and Tata Communications. This latest edition addresses the topic of entrepreneurial talent and global competitiveness and "attempts to identify the ways in which large and small firms, nations, and cities can foster entrepreneurial talent in the era of digital transformation."