In the top 10 of countries in the Global Talent Competitiveness Index is currently no possition available for the Netherlands. For now Switzerland, Singapore and Great Britain are the leaders when it comes to attract talent. For the first time, this year’s report also includes an index on cities. Eindhoven is on the eighth place in this list. Previously was announced Eindhoven is the seventh city of Europe regarding attractiveness to talent.
Urban advantage
Talented individuals tend to focus less on which country to go to and more on which city to live in. Cities are therefore, increasingly engaging in their own means to attract, retain and develop talent, making them a crucial part of talent competitiveness. Following a similar methodology to the GTCI ranking, the GCTCI ranking tells us that the leaders, Copenhagen, Zurich and Helsinki, in addition to being consistently high performers in quality-of-life indicators, have strong physical and information infrastructure and strong international links.
Another interesting finding is that despite the presence of the big metropolises, such as Paris and Los Angeles in the leading group, the average population of the top 10 cities is around 400,000, demonstrating that the trend of highly educated individuals gravitating to large cities is changing. As talented individuals can increasingly operate from anywhere, physical and technical connectivity and quality of life are competitive advantages for smaller cities. The importance of clusters cannot be underestimated. Ireland’s ICT clusters are a distinct advantage; so is Eindhoven, which is home to Philips.