As Novac/Adriano Milovan writes on the 18th of November, 2019, the Republic of Croatia has managed to climb one place up in this year's World Talent Rankings, and now, according to a new report from the Lausanne Institute for Business Management Development (IMD), it ranks 53rd out of the 63 countries which were surveyed.

The Talent Report assesses a country's ability to build, attract and retain talented individuals so that it can form the much needed basis for increasing competitiveness and economic growth. Ratings are given on the basis of three key factors - investment and development, then, the country's ''attractiveness'' in regard to retaining its own as well as attracting foreign talent, and the country's willingness, ie, its actual ability to meet the labour market demands of talented individuals. These three factors contain a total of 32 indicators.

Although Croatia has improved its position on this list of world rankings, it still remains close to the bottom of the table. This year, Croatia ranked best in terms of investment and development, ranking 36th in the world, while the country was ranked an unimpressive 61st in terms of retaining its own and attracting foreign talent - coming in at the very bottom of the list. Croatia is also poor in assessing its own willingness to meet the labour market's demand for skilled labour, which places it at an equally rather depressing 60th in the world.

''This year's IMD report shows that we have moved towards the top by one place, but it has also shown that we cannot be satisfied with 53rd place,'' said Ivica Mudrinić, President of the National Competitiveness Council (NVK), an IMD partner institution. He added that Croatia should be deeply concerned about its clear inability to retain its own talent or attract foreign talent.

Rather unsurprisingly, Switzerland is still the best positioned country on the world talent list. Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Luxembourg follow. Among the 10 countries that are seen as hotbeds for talent, only one country - Singapore, is non-European. Germany ranks 11th, USA 12th, and Canada 13th. On the other hand, Mongolia is at the top of the chart, while Venezuela and Brazil are slightly better placed, the report shows.

For Croatia, it is a particular problem that almost all new EU members are ranked better than Croatia on the world talent list. Estonia is 27th, Lithuania 28th, Slovenia 31st, Latvia 34th, Poland 37th, Czech Republic 39th, Hungary 45th, and Bulgaria 53rd. behind Croatia is Romania, which came in 55th, and Slovakia, which is 57th.

According to this particular report for 2019, Ukraine and even Indonesia, the Philippines and Jordan were better placed than Croatia, meaning an enormous amount of work needs to be done.

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