Page 121 - kpi19897

Economic competitiveness vis-a-vis labor and talent

management in ASEAN countries

As ASEAN countries try to maximize the possible gains
of skilled human mobility, how are these countries handling

the place of skilled professionals in the labor market? Global
indices from some global thinktanks, and how ASEAN countries
performed in these, may give us some indications.

The INSEAD Business School (with branches in Europe,
the Middle East, and Asia) releases the annual Global Talent

Competitiveness Index since 2013. As expected, developed
economies Singapore and Malaysia are in the upper-third of
countries; Singapore is the second-best worldwide. The other

ASEAN countries are in the middle-to-lower tiers of the rankings.
Singapore and Malaysia ranked high in some indicators related

to attracting talent: ease of hiring and ease of handling
redundancy (or redundant positions). Singapore is tops in
terms of labor productivity and in terms of the labor pool of

technicians and associate professionals, professionals and
researchers (see Table 5).

But interestingly, Singapore and the Philippines
have respectable rankings in the sub-criterion “tolerance to
immigrants.” This hints on how countries may handle the influx

of (skilled) foreign workers who move across borders with no
or little discrimination. What is also interesting is that most

ASEAN countries are ranked in the upper-third countries on

120

01-133 inside_PolicyForum_New.indd 120 30/1/2562 BE 14:25