Credit: IMD

Luxembourg has regained its Top 3 position in the International Institute for Management Development's (IMD) World Talent Ranking 2023.

Second only to Switzerland, Luxembourg has jumped five places compared to 2022- from 7th to 2nd overall. Iceland ranked 3rd. Switzerland has now topped the list of 64 economies (across eight regions) for ten consecutive years.

Belgium and the Netherlands ranked 4th and 5th, respectively.

The Grand Duchy performed particularly well in the areas of "Investment & Development" (2nd place, with a score of 95.06%) and "Appeal" (4th place, with 75.33%). The former looks at factors such as public expenditure on education, the pupil-teacher ratio and employee training; the latter considers quality of life and attracting and retaining talents, as well as the cost-of-living index (Luxembourg performed poorer in this area than others), to name but a few. It performed less well in the "Readiness" category (24th place, with 60.16%), which looks at a country's labour force growth and skilled labour, among other factors.

The Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce, which participated in the collection of data from Luxembourg companies as an institutional partner of IMD, commented on these results. It noted that the results showed the "difficult" context facing business leaders, namely regarding the ability of companies to attract and retain talent with the right skills.

The Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce added that the Grand Duchy can rely on its high standard of living (8th), independent judicial system (20th), attractive remuneration for management positions (8th) and one of the highest minimum wages in the world (4th) to attract foreign labour. However, the high cost of living (40th), in particular that of housing, "constitutes a significant obstacle to the country's ability to attract talent".

In addition, Luxembourg has been particularly affected by a lack of skills, as illustrated by its drop from 52nd to 55th place for "skilled labour".

The full ranking can be viewed online at https://www.imd.org/centers/wcc/world-competitiveness-center/rankings/world-talent-ranking/.