UAE region’s first in ‘global talent competitiveness index’

DUBAI / Emirates Business

The United Arab Emirates now leads the Western Asia and North Africa region in the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) 2017, according to a report released by Adecco Middle East. The UAE was also ranked 19th out of the 118 participating countries, surpassing most nations in the ‘Attract’, ‘Retain’ and ‘Enable’ pillars of the survey.
Adecco is a partner of the annual GTCI, which is a benchmarking report that measures a country’s ability to compete for talent. First launched in 2013, the report ranks the participating countries according to its capacity to develop, attract, retain, and empower talent.
The 2017 survey confirms that the UAE performed best in the region, which includes Arab countries from across North Africa, Western Asia, and Turkey. Based on its GDP per capita and population size, Qatar is the UAE’s closest competitor, in 21st place overall.
Says Romain Liot, Managing Director of Adecco Middle East, “The UAE has consistently performed well, but has never broken the top 20, until now. Its position in this year’s GTCI report is both recognition and confirmation of the fact that the vision of the country’s leadership – to build a knowledge-based economy – is taking hold.”
He adds, “While our score keeps steadily increasing, we haven’t yet been able to beat countries like Singapore – and this is our time to change that.”

Attracting talent and
improving growth
Six pillars define each country’s performance in the report: four measuring input and two measuring output, using a total of 65 variables. A country’s overall GTCI score and ranking are based on an average of the six pillars. The UAE’s score was 62.49 (2.75 above it’s ‘high income’ group average of 59.74).
The UAE is ranked 4th overall in the ‘Attract’ pillar, which highlights the country’s ability to lure valuable resources from abroad (direct investments and otherwise) and HR (highly skilled migrants). It falls within the top five in the world in migrant stock, international students, brain gain, tolerance of immigrants, FDI, and transfer of technology.
Damian Brown, Permanent Placement Director at Adecco Middle East explains, “Since the launch of the GTCI report in 2013, the UAE has made the biggest leap in the attraction of talent, moving from 37th to 4th position in four years. Interestingly, it is also ranked 10th in the world for placing female executives in the workforce. However, the survey also highlights gender earnings disparity and the difficulties women of this region face in high-powered jobs.”
The second and third respective top pillars were ‘Retain’ – quality of life being one of the main components – and ‘Enable’ where the UAE ranks high in national regulatory, and market and business landscapes are facilitating talent attraction and growth. The pillars where the UAE’s performance was less favourable were in the ‘Grow’ and ‘Global Knowledge Skills’ pillars.
“The UAE’s scores, including fifth in the world when it comes to ‘brain retention’, proves that it is capable of retaining its talent and keeping them engaged after they are integrated into the workforce,” says Ibrahim Al Asmawi, Adecco Middle East HR Manager.
The survey also states that the UAE is focused on removing barriers from those with underprivileged backgrounds, women and older people. It focuses on using technology to bridge ongoing inequality in the workforce, from helping female executives have long dynamic careers, to exploring the need for public-private sector partnerships.
A key focus for 2017 at Adecco Middle East is Emiratization. For improving its own pool of talent, the UAE could look at the experience of higher-ranked countries such as Singapore, which offers best practices regarding developing high-level skills and better transition for graduates into the workforce.
“We encourage empowering Emiratis, especially those who are unemployed, and we will work in close collaboration with the government and semi-governmental organisations. We want to generate more jobs for Emiratis, and encourage them to invest in their country in multiple sectors,” says Al Asmawi.

Talent and Technology combine for a symbiotic working future
Sandhya Sabapathy, Market Strategy Officer at Adecco Middle East says, “This year’s theme is particularly relevant for the UAE as we strive to establish the region as an innovation hub, and an incubator for many start-ups. Technology augments talent and doesn’t replace it – it promotes the movement of skill sets towards a highly specialised knowledge-based economy.”
The key findings of the survey are: People, machines and algorithms are now combining to create a robust workforce; and in the future countries will need to provide its workforce with new skills to attain development goals. The report indicates that people will need to think beyond automation, will have to grow accustomed to having multiple jobs during their lives, and will need to plan for continuous upskilling to stay employable.