Have you thought about how your profession can prosper outside of Colombia? The labor market, or the active working population in the world, according to the World Bank, is above 3.55 billion people. Of that group, there are more than 800 million professionals who are actively seeking a position outside their home country.
Boston Consulting Group (BCG), The Network and The Stepstone Group, updated the study, Decoding Global Talent 2024, which is based on data from surveys of more than 150,000 people from 188 countries, and seeks to provide an overview of the job search global. According to the report, English-speaking geographies with strong economies top the list of top and most sought-after destinations, with Australia, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom being the four most desired countries.
Regarding favorite cities, London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and New York top the list. Of the 188 countries surveyed, Colombia ranks 52nd on the list of the most desired territories to work in, which represents an improvement of 17 positions compared to the 69th position it obtained in the 2020 survey.
Australia became more attractive to respondents from Asian countries and gained popularity among respondents from North America, Africa and several European countries, including the United Kingdom and Ireland. The Australian economy has seen a jobs boom post-pandemic, with high wages and high demand for talent.
This prompted the Australian government to pursue an aggressive talent attraction strategy, resulting in a record increase in net migration numbers to more than half a million people per year during 2022 and 2023. Our survey data indicates that 76% of respondents who moved to Australia for work have had a positive experience.
Overall, though, the top echelon of the rankings hasn't changed much. Canada and the United States remain the top three talent destinations because of the attractive economic opportunities they offer and because they are simultaneously English-speaking countries and global melting pots.
The United Kingdom and Germany remain among the top five target countries. Despite Brexit, migration to the UK reached record levels in 2023, driven mainly by the introduction of new non-EU student and work visas, and for an increase in humanitarian visas for residents of conflict regions. For its part, Germany has made efforts to simplify the entry of skilled workers under the new Skilled Immigration Law and has introduced a new naturalization law to make it easier to obtain citizenship.
Natives of regions with a labor surplus (due to higher birth rates) tend to be more mobile than those who live in areas where the labor force is declining. For example, 64% of workers in the Middle East and Africa are actively willing to relocate, and more than half of respondents in South Asia (58%) and from sub-Saharan Africa (52%) are actively willing to do so. At the other end of the spectrum, much lower percentages are seen in North America (16%) and Europe (10%).
