Answers to this question appear in the Human Capital Report 2016 by the World Economic Forum. The report also compiled a ranking of 130 countries in the world, the Human Capital Index, which ranks countries according to the ability to leverage their human capital. It concludes there is a direct correlation between the level of the economic income of individual countries and their ability to develop and deploy human capital.
A total of 19 countries are able to use 80% or more of their human capital. Another 40 countries rank between 70% and 80%, while 38 countries rank between 60% and 70%. Only five countries remain below 50%. From the global perspective, Finland, Norway and Switzerland, which already use 85% of their human capital, scored the best. The Czech Republic (78%) ranked 25th. Japan leads the ranking in the age group of people over 55.
In western Europe, Germany (11th place in the overall ranking), France (17th) and the United Kingdom (19th) occupied the highest places. Portugal (41st), Greece (44th) and Spain (45th) ranked lowest. The Czech Republic was included in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, where it ranked fourth behind Estonia, Slovenia and Lithuania. The last places in this region are occupied by Albania, Moldova, Macedonia and Tajikistan.
The study also ranked each country according to their ability to use human capital in different age groups. The differences between the groups are very interesting. You can find them here.
Large-scale data is the key to understanding the skills that will be needed in the coming years. It is, therefore, necessary to start focusing on the following areas:
- viewing work in terms of groups of skills rather than job titles,
- wider opportunities for developing the new talent via relatively modest training,
- maximum use of education at schools and at work,
- better understanding of data in order to limit the brain drain and gain more talent.
The complete study is available online here.
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