Minister Indranee Rajah addresses Singapore’s decline in recent World Talent Ranking 2025

One key driver she highlighted lay in perception-based factors, or indicators, in particular how business executives viewed adequacy of apprenticeships, their perceptions of companies’ prioritisation of employee training and their confidence in Singapore’s ability to avoid brain drain.

IMD’s World Talent Ranking 2025 placed Singapore seventh globally, marking a drop of five spots from its second-place position last year — a decline that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Finance and National Development, Indranee Rajah, addressed on behalf of Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong in a Parliamentary query.

Minister Indranee outlined the three ways the ranking measures economies’ performance:

1. Developing home-grown talent,
2. Attracting and retaining overseas talent, and 
3. Building the skills and competencies of the labour force.

Addressing the concern over why Singapore's ranking in 2025 dropped compared to the preceding year, she shared that one key driver was perception-based factors or indicators — particularly, how business executives viewed the adequacy of apprenticeships, their perceptions of companies’ prioritisation of employee training, and their confidence in Singapore’s ability to avoid brain drain.

In response, she affirmed that the Government will carefully analyse these findings, along with other relevant data, to better understand the underlying causes and determine where and how it can do better.

She also pointed out that Singapore's performance should also be seen in context. Sharing an example, she highlighted that demographic realities limit how much a workforce can grow. As such, Singapore's labour force growth in 2024 resulted in a fall in the related indicator. 

"On the other hand, although we were ranked 63^rd in terms of our public expenditure on education as a share of GDP, we were second in the same survey on education outcomes (i.e., the PISA score). This is a testament to our cost-effective public spending on education," she noted.

She emphasised that Singapore will continue to welcome talent who complement its own capabilities, while at the same time pressing on with the priority of developing the local workforce.

"By investing in our people, enhancing our business environment, strengthening our connectivity and fostering a vibrant tech and innovation ecosystem, we are confident that Singapore will remain a leading global talent hub."