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Johannesburg – A lack of development of employees beyond schooling is one of the weaknesses which has dragged down South Africa’s competitiveness in the IMD World Talent Ranking for 2017.
South Africa dropped five places to rank 48 out of 63 countries, for the IMD business school for management and leadership’s World Talent Ranking released this week. It assesses the methods countries use to attract and retain talent in their businesses out of a score of 100.
Among BRICS nations, three of which are in the bottom 20, South Africa performs better than India, in position 51, and Brazil ranked 52. It lags behind China, ranked 40 and Russia, ranked 43, according to the report.
Arturo Bris, director of the IMD World Competitiveness Centre, commented that although South Africa invests in education, more so than its African counterparts, the outcomes have not yet been realised. Its spend on education is actually one of its strengths and South Africa ranks 4 in that regard.
South Africa is in first place in terms of the cost-of-living index, and ranks highly in terms of the personal income tax rate (2) and labour force growth (7).
However, the country has a very low ratio of teachers to pupils, which is a weakness, explained Bris. South Africa also needs to address the implementation of apprenticeships, said Bris, explaining that companies need to prepare employees in the labour force.
“Once the student graduates from college or from school, companies need to make a bigger effort of investment in people to develop individuals within the companies.”
Another weakness is the availability of skilled labour which ranked 60, the capacity of the educational system to meet the talent needs of the economy (60) and emphasis on science in schools (60).
Contributing factors to the country’s low ranking was the health infrastructure (52), worker motivation (57) and the availability of competent senior managers (50), among other things.
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