GTCI 2019 ranking: top 40 of 125 countries and scores

The sixth edition kept its top three: Switzerland, Singapore and the United States held the first three places for a second year in a row¹. The list of countries in the top 25 was identical to the 2018 list¹. The movement was lower down: Germany returned to the top 15 and Ireland left it¹. The 2019 theme was entrepreneurial talent, and the report carried the series’ first comparison of two three-year periods^1,3. Below you get the table, the top 15 country by country, the pillar leaders, the shifts against 2018 and 2020, the regional and income picture, and what the entrepreneurship theme added.

The 2019 ranking: top 40 of 125

Table 1 of the GTCI 2019 report gives every country a score, an income group and a region¹. Forty rows are shown here, copied from that table¹. Coverage grew from 119 to 125 countries, almost 98% of the world’s GDP and 93% of its population¹.

Of the top 25, 16 are European¹. Seven further non-European countries join Singapore and the United States: New Zealand (11th), Australia (12th), Canada (15th), the United Arab Emirates (19th), Israel (20th), Japan (22nd) and Qatar (24th)¹. Malaysia, 27th, is the only country in the top quartile that is not high-income¹. Chile and Cyprus print the same score, 52.20, at 32nd and 33rd¹. Bahrain, 40th, closes this extract, and Costa Rica is 34th¹.

Worked example (our arithmetic). Gaps between selected ranks, each the difference of two scores in the table¹.

Two things stand out. The ranking is steepest at the top: the nine places from 1st to 10th cover 10.64 points, almost as many as the 15 places from 10th to 25th (11.80) or from 25th to 40th (10.93)¹. And the very top is lopsided: Switzerland is 4.55 points clear of second place, while second and third are only 0.63 apart¹.

How far ahead Switzerland was, edition by edition

Switzerland has held first place since the first GTCI in 2013, but the margin has not been constant³.

The chart and table show the gap between first place and the runner-up in four reports. Each gap is read inside one edition, because scores from different editions sit on different models.

Worked example (our arithmetic). Each lead subtracts the second-place score from Switzerland’s score in the same report^6,2,1,3.

The 2019 lead is the widest of the four. By 2020 it had shrunk by more than half as the United States took second place^1,3. A 4.55-point lead in 2019 is therefore a feature of that edition’s model and field, not a settled gap between Switzerland and everyone else.

National talent competitiveness in 2019

The top group is steady from year to year. Almost all the countries ranked in the top 15 of 2019 were in that group in the 2018 index¹. Only one country, Ireland (16th, down from 13th), dropped out, and Germany (14th, up from 19th) is the new addition¹. Thirteen of the 15 are among the top 15 performers in at least four of the six pillars, and the one pillar where several top-15 countries rank lower is Vocational and Technical Skills¹. Countries just outside the group lead single pillars: Austria (18th) has the third-highest score on Vocational and Technical Skills and the United Arab Emirates (19th) the third-highest on Attract¹. Israel (20th) is a top performer on Global Knowledge Skills, Japan (22nd) scores well on Enable, and Bahrain (40th) is among the best at attracting talent¹.

The top 15, country by country

Switzerland is at the top because it is strong on all six pillars; Attract (5th) is its lowest pillar rank¹. Its weakest sub-pillars are Internal Openness (14th) and Access to Growth Opportunities (10th)¹. Singapore is uniformly strong in the sub-pillars behind its three first places, and its lowest pillar is Retain (26th)¹. The United States leads Grow thanks to Formal Education (3rd), Lifelong Learning (2nd) and Access to Growth Opportunities (1st), and its lowest pillars are Attract (14th) and Retain (13th)¹.

Several country profiles show the same split between home and abroad. Finland is 2nd on Internal Openness and 33rd on External Openness¹. Iceland is 1st on Internal Openness and 52nd on External Openness¹. Norway’s weak pillar, Attract, is dragged down by External Openness (31st)¹. Germany’s return to the top 15 rests on a world-class pool of Vocational and Technical Skills (3rd), including Mid-Level Skills (3rd), while Attract (20th) and Global Knowledge Skills (23rd) sit outside the top 15¹. Denmark, 5th, has Attract (17th) as its one pillar outside the top 10, and Sweden, 7th, has Vocational and Technical Skills (11th) as its only one¹.

Pillar definitions and weights are in the pillar guide, and the rankings hub lists the other editions.

Pillar leaders in GTCI 2019

Table A1 of the report names the top three on each pillar¹.

Singapore leads three pillars and Switzerland two, the United States one¹. Switzerland is also second on Enable and Grow, which is how it stays first overall without leading every pillar¹. The 2020 ranking shows how the same table looked a year later. The pillar called Global Knowledge Skills here was relabelled Generalist Adaptive Skills in the 2025 edition⁴.

What changed since the 2018 edition

The top 25 holds the same countries as the 2018 table, in a different order¹. Since the model was by and large unaltered, rank changes from 2018 can be considered reliable, particularly for the best-performing countries¹. For lower positions, allow for the two countries that dropped out for lack of data, Bolivia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and for eight new additions¹.

Worked example (our arithmetic). Each change subtracts the 2019 rank from the 2018 rank, read from Table 1 of the GTCI 2018 report and of the 2019 report^2,1. A positive change is a climb. The 2020 column is context only, from the GTCI 2020 report³.

Of the 25 countries, 6 rose, 9 fell and 10 kept their rank between 2018 and 2019^2,1. Germany climbed five places (19th to 14th) and Israel four (24th to 20th), while Ireland fell three (13th to 16th)^2,1. Sweden, Japan and the United Arab Emirates fell two places each, and Denmark gained two^2,1.

Scores moved the other way from ranks. Sixteen of the 25 countries scored lower in 2019 than in 2018, and only nine scored higher, yet 10 kept the same rank^2,1. Singapore, for instance, kept second place while its score went from 78.42 to 77.27^2,1. A rank is relative, so it can hold while a score slips if the countries around it slip too. This is the practical reason to quote an edition year beside every figure.

Regions and income groups

Income and rank travel together in 2019. The top performers are all high-income countries, and only one country in the top quartile is not: Malaysia, 27th¹. All but one high-income country scored above the median, the exception being Kuwait, the first country below it¹. The Philippines leads the lower-middle-income group and Rwanda leads the low-income group¹. The index included 49 high-income countries, and the lowest-ranked of them on the Retain pillar is in position 57¹.

Regions follow. Besides Europe and Northern America, two regions place countries among the top 31: Eastern, Southeastern Asia and Oceania with five and Northern Africa and Western Asia with three¹. No country from Central and Southern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, or Sub-Saharan Africa is in the top quartile, although Chile, 32nd, is just outside it¹. The gaps between the three lower income groups are narrower than the distance each has to the high-income group¹.

Entrepreneurial talent, the 2019 theme

The 2019 report asks what entrepreneurial talent adds to national competitiveness. Its first message is that talent inequalities are broadening: the gap separating the talent champions from the rest has been growing rather than diminishing¹. The second is that talent has become a mainstream concern for firms, nations and cities¹. The third is that entrepreneurial talent can both broaden and reduce inequalities, and should be seen as a state of mind that can be grown with policies, incentives and management approaches¹. A sixth message expects cities to become entrepreneurial talent hubs¹.

The data behind the theme comes from one variable, new product entrepreneurial activity: the share of early-stage entrepreneurs whose product or service is new to at least some customers and that few or no other businesses offer¹. On that variable Luxembourg is first and Chile second, with France third, Lebanon fourth and Canada fifth¹. Russia is one of the lowest-scoring countries¹. The broader Talent Impact sub-pillar adds Innovation output, High-value exports, New business density and Scientific journal articles, and there the top performers are concentrated in high-income Europe, Northern America and Oceania¹. One implication for entrepreneurial talent is that it needs to be cross-border and cross-sector, since successful entrepreneurs must convince banks, researchers, suppliers, consumers and workers of their vision¹.

The 2019 model change follows the same logic. The number of variables stayed at 68, but the model was altered to capture entrepreneurship that is original and geared to new products and approaches¹.

A first look across two three-year periods

The 2019 report opens the series’ time-series analysis, comparing 2014 to 2016 with 2017 to 2019^1,3. Averaging three years smooths annual fluctuations and absorbs changes in method¹. Only countries in all six reports are included: 86¹. The method has a stated drawback, which is that scores are not fully comparable between years because of data changes and methodological improvements¹.

The result is stability at the top and churn below it. Eight of the top 10 of 2014 to 2016 were also in the top 10 of 2017 to 2019¹. Switzerland and Singapore are at the peak in both periods, and the United States climbs from 4th to 3rd¹. Luxembourg and Canada drop out of the top 10, although their scores rose, because other countries outperformed them¹. Among the large emerging economies, China rose two places to 41st, India four to 71st and Russia one to 46th, while Brazil fell 12 places (50th to 62nd) and South Africa eight (48th to 56th)¹. Indonesia climbed most, from 77th to 64th¹. Changes in ranking, especially larger shifts, are more likely at lower positions than at higher ones¹.

On income groups the high-income distribution moved up while the upper-middle and lower-middle distributions moved down¹. Two opposing trends are at work: talent competitiveness strengthens in groups of countries where it is already comparatively high and weakens where it is relatively low¹. A possible reason is that economic expansion in several more developed countries generated greater demand for talent¹.

The GTCI and the Global Competitiveness Index

The Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) ranking is a different product from the GTCI, made by the World Economic Forum. The 2019 edition of its report covers 141 economies and defines competitiveness as the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity⁵. Singapore (84.8) overtook the United States (83.7) at the top of that table⁵. The GTCI ranks 125 countries on talent and put Switzerland first in the same year¹. A search for “GCI ranking” and for the GTCI can land on either, so check which index and which year a figure belongs to before you quote it.

The 2019 model and its neighbours

The model has 68 variables in 2019, unchanged from 2018, and the audit by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre confirmed that the changes improved its accuracy while keeping it solid and robust¹. Coverage and variables differ across the editions near it.

The model is stable from 2018 to 2019, so rank changes between them are fairly reliable¹. The step to 2020 went from 68 to 70 variables and from 125 to 132 countries, so scores are best read inside one edition³. The 2020 ranking page has that edition’s table. For how the index is built, see the methodology page.

The cities ranking in the 2019 report

The 2019 report also ranks cities, with the Global City Talent Competitiveness Index now including 114 cities¹. Washington, DC is first, up from 6th, followed by Copenhagen, Oslo, Vienna and Zurich¹. Six of the top 10 were also in the top 10 the year before, and the newcomers are Vienna, Boston, New York and Seoul¹. The highest-ranked cities of mainland China, Beijing (57th), Shanghai (72nd) and Hangzhou (82nd), are in the second quartile¹.

Who produced the 2019 report

The 2019 report was edited by Bruno Lanvin and Felipe Monteiro, and its copyright line names INSEAD, the Adecco Group and Tata Communications¹. A disclaimer adds that the methodology and rankings do not necessarily present the views of those three organisations¹. INSEAD’s partner profile lists campuses in Europe (France), Asia (Singapore) and the Middle East (Abu Dhabi), 154 faculty members from 40 countries and more than 1,400 degree participants annually¹. It records the first MBA class graduating at Fontainebleau in 1960 and the Asia campus opening in Singapore in 2000¹. The Adecco Group’s profile gives more than 34,000 employees in 60 countries, and Tata Communications presents itself as a global digital infrastructure provider¹. These are 2019 self-descriptions, not a current profile. The editions page tracks the partners on every report.

Other editions: the GTCI 2018 ranking comes before this one, and the GTCI 2021 ranking and 2017 results carry full tables, and the Switzerland and Singapore story follows the top two across the series.