Answers to these questions came from this year's study by the World Economic Forum, the Human Capital Report 2017. It compiled a list of 130 countries of the world, the so-called Human Capital Index, which ranks countries according to their ability to leverage human capital of different age groups.
A total of 25 countries use 70% or more of their human capital. Another 41 countries rank between 50% and 60%. 14 countries remain below 50%. From the global perspective, Norway, Finland and Switzerland, which already make use of more than 75% of their human capital, scored the best. The Czech Republic (71%) ranked 22nd.
The leaders in Europe are Norway (1st place in the overall ranking), Finland (2nd), Switzerland (3rd), Denmark (5th), Germany (6th) and Sweden (8th). The lowest places were occupied by Portugal (43rd), Spain (44th) and Greece (48th).
The Czech Republic was included in the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where it ranked fourth after Slovenia (9th place in the overall ranking), Estonia (12th) and Russia (16th). The final places in the region were occupied by Albania, Macedonia and Moldova.
From the global point of view, the study offered five key findings.
- No matter what part of the world they live in, people today are on average much more educated than their parents.
- The human capital of young people, older people and women is used the least. Therefore, they look for new digital forms of work rather than traditional jobs.
- One-off education in schools is no longer sufficient. The current age demands lifelong learning, including retraining and improving the skills of existing workers.
- Employers and governments around the world invest in too narrow a group of highly skilled talents. The beginning of the 4th Industrial Revolution is, however, a great opportunity to develop a wide range of professions and offer more interesting and safer work.
- Companies can no longer play the role of consumers of "ready-made" human capital. Deeper cooperation with educational institutions in the context of lifelong learning is needed. Investing in retraining and improving employee skills is a matter of social responsibility.
The entire study is available online here.
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