Co-Branded Report Cover Title CO-BRANDED REPORT SUBTITLE Co-branded logo Decoding Global Talent 2018 WHAT 366,000 WORKFORCE RESPONDENTS IN 197 COUNTRIES TELL US ABOUT JOB PREFERENCES AND MOBILITYThe Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a global management consulting firm and the worlds leading advisor on business strategy. We partner with clients from the private, public, and not-for- profit sectors in all regions to identify their highest-value opportunities, address their most critical challenges, and transform their enterprises. Our customized approach combines deep insight into the dynamics of companies and markets with close collaboration at all levels of the client organization. This ensures that our clients achieve sustainable competitive advantage, build more capable organizations, and secure lasting results. Founded in 1963, BCG is a private company with offices in more than 90 cities in 50 countries. For more information, please visit bcg. The Network is a global alliance of more than 50 leading recruitment websites, committed to finding the best talent in over 130 countries. Founded in 2002, The Network has become the global leader in online recruitment, serving more than 2,000 global corporations. We offer these corporations a single point of contact in their home countries, and allow them to work in a single currency and with a single contractwhile giving them access to a global workforce. The recruitment websites in The Network attract almost 200 million unique visitors each month. For more information, please visit the-network.June 2018 | The Boston Consulting Group The Network RAINER STRACK MIKE BOOKER ORSOLYA KOVACS-ONDREJKOVIC PIERRE ANTEBI DAVID WELCH This is the first in a series of articles about workforce changes and skills of the future. DECODING GLOBAL TALENT 2018 WHAT 366,000 WORKFORCE RESPONDENTS IN 197 COUNTRIES TELL US ABOUT JOB PREFERENCES AND MOBILITY2 Decoding Global Talent CONTENTS3 The Workforce Challenge5 A Decline in the Desire to Work Abroad8 The Appeal of Specific Foreign Destinations14 The Search for a Good Cultural Fit16 How Companies and Governments Can Adapt20 Advice for Individuals22 For Further Reading23 Note to the ReaderThe Boston Consulting Group The Network 3A sk leaders at big companies what worries them, and one of the first things theyll mention is the challenge of managing a workforce at a time of rapid change. Jobs being transformed by automation and artificial intelligence is one big concerneven if the full effects are still a few years off. Even now, with automation just starting, many positions require new digital capabilities or deep technical expertise. Theyre hard to fill. And then theres the impact of demographics. Older employees are retiring, and younger re- placements dont have equivalent knowledge. If younger people want to take on these lega- cy jobsa question in the first placeits only on certain terms. Younger candidates bring their own workplace expectations. As they wrestle with these challengesand the resulting talent imbalancescorporate leaders and economic policymakers should be taking a closer look at where people want to work, what they want in a job, and where to find needed skills. Just as companies and countries study everything from the capital markets to the weather, they must now try to get a handle on the future of the workforce. This includes finding foreign candidates at a time when immigration policy is undergoing change in many countries. With all of this in mind, The Boston Con- sulting Group and the online international recruitment company The Network have joined together to create one of the largest surveys ever of labor trends and work prefer- ences366,000 people in 197 countries. (See Exhibit 1 to understand the survey scope and participants backgrounds.) In taking this comprehensive approachand by comparing our findings with those of our previous study in 2014we set out to under- stand what has changed about peoples job preferences and attitudes toward mobility. This year, we added questions about megatrends in the world of work, about the global workforces willingness to learn new skills, about their interest in working in new ways, and about their readiness to meet the challenges of a digital era. A simultaneous survey of 6,000 recruiters gave us the employer perspective. (See the appendix, “Survey Methodology.”) Understanding global workforce attitudes is critical for both companies and countries. Those that manage it will gain flexibility in addressing their future challenges and will have the best shot at sustaining economic growth. THE WORKFORCE CHALLENGE4 Decoding Global Talent EXHIBIT 1 10, 000 or more respondents 5,0009,999 respondents 1,0004,999 respondents 100999 respondents Less than 100 respondents A Survey of 366,139 Workforce Respondents in 197 Countries Americas Other Americas Barbados Colombia Dominican Republic Argentina Canada Brazil Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Peru Trinidad and Tobago Honduras Jamaica Nicaragua Panama Ecuador US Mexico Venezuela Middle East and Africa Other Middle East and Africa Benin Cameroon Egypt Ghana Kenya Nigeria Qatar Saudi Arabia Israel Ivory Coast South Africa Tunisia United Arab Emirates Morocco Algeria Angola Iran Asia-P acic Other Asia and Pacic Afghanistan Australia Japan Nepal Pakistan South Korea India Malaysia Myanmar Philippines China Indonesia Singapore Thailand Vietnam Europe Other Europe Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Czech Republic Finland Kyrgyzstan Luxembourg Norway Belarus France Kazakhstan Switzerland Germany Hungary Romania Russia Slovenia Sweden Uzbekistan Turkey Ukraine UK Albania Austria Belgium Croatia Cyprus Denmark Estonia Greece Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Netherlands Poland Portugal Serbia Slovakia Spain Source: 2018 BCG/The Network proprietary web survey and analysis. Note: Percentages may not total 100 because of rounding. Workforce respondents Industry Position Company size 366,139 Recruiter respondents 6,180 Age distribution Male Consumer Financial institutions 150 51500 5013000 3,001+ Health care Hospitality and service Industrial goods Legal Business Technology Social/public sector Other Owner or senior manage- ment Middle manage- ment Lower manage- ment No manage- ment responsibilities Prefer not to say Female 52% 47% 2% 10 20 30 40 50 60 6% 18% 25% 50% Recruit abroad 29% Recruit domestically 71% 37% 34% 15% 15% Education Doctorate or equivalent 2% High school diploma or equivalent 13% Masters degree or postgraduate q u ali c at ion 29% None/other 1% Secondary q u ali c at ions 17% Bachelors degree 38% 16% 8% 7% 5% 1% 4% 11% 6% 20% 23%The Boston Consulting Group The Network 5 A DECLINE IN THE DESIRE TO WORK ABROAD T here is no denying the impact that tightening trade and immigration pol- icies are having on the USs reputation as a work destination and that Brexit is having on the UKs. The changes brought about by heightened nationalism show up in the sur- vey resultssometimes subtly, sometimes less so. Other factors, too, have affected the global map of mobility. Notable among these are Europes refugee crisis, Asias continuing rise, and Eastern Europes economic revitalization. The net result is that overall willingness to emigrate has dipped. Fifty-seven percent of all respondents now say they would move to another country for work. While that is still a sizable number, it is 7 percentage points low- er than when we asked the same question in 2014. Then, the “would relocate” response was 64%. It could be that the world is becoming less mobile. Or it could be that work itself is be- coming more global, making it unnecessary for people to uproot their lives to find satisfy- ing, well-paying jobs. Mobility is not lower everywhere, of course. More than 90% of Indians and 70% of Brazil- ians now say they would be willing to move to another country for the right job. (See Ex- hibit 2.) Those are two of the worlds most populous nations; in both, willingness to work abroad is up significantly since 2014. Willingness to work abroad has also in- creased substantially in the US and UK, the two countries whose political shifts have got- ten the most attention, and is above 70% in much of Africa. Overall, however, willingness to relocate for work has declined. Of the 50 most populous countries in the survey, only 7 show a signifi- cantly greater interest in mobility now versus 2014, as reflected by the percentage of their population willing to emigrate. Twelve of the 50 show a significant decrease in mobility. (For purposes of analysis, we treated an in- crease or decrease of 10 percentage points as significant.) Among the countries whose workforce is sig- nificantly less inclined to consider a foreign work assign- ment now is China. Eric Li, an IT executive in Shanghai who participated in this years sur- vey, says that Chi- na has become an innovator in many areas. That has made it unneces- sary for Chinese to move abroad to “ Fifty-seven percent of people would work abroad, a drop from 2014.6 Decoding Global Talentadvance their careers, says Li, who previously worked in both the US and the UK. “There are lots of really great opportunities in China over the next few years,” Li, 43, says. Improving economic conditions would also seem to explain the steep falloff in mobility in many central and eastern European countries. Respondents in Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, and Romania are all below the mobility average after having been above it, by wide margins, in 2014. This part of the world has seen a lot of investment and most econo- mies here are growing at rates above the global average. Personal factors also play into mobility. People who dont have children are more likely than people who do to say they would be willing to consider an opportunity in a country other than their own (60% of nonpar- ents are willing versus 52% of parents). Simi- larly, there is more willingness to work abroad among those who are single than among those who are married (65% versus 51%), among men than women (61% versus 53%), and among respondents in their twenties than among respondents age 60 or older (61% will- ingness versus 44% willingness). Because the survey respondents skew a little young, and because many describe them- selves as job seekers (increasing their in- clination to be flexible), the 57% willingness figure may overstate the interest in overseas employment among the worlds total work population. But often its younger employeeswith their malleability, up-to-the-minute technical know-how, ambition, and staminathat for- eign countries and multinational companies want to hire in the first place. The survey contains potentially good news for the many recruiters who are responsible for filling technology or digital-development jobs. Sixty-seven percent of global respon- dents and job seekers who are expert in areas like user interface design, mobile app devel- Source: 2018 BCG/The Network proprietary web survey and analysis. Note: Total sample size was 366,139; listed are the countries from which there were more than 100 responses. EXHIBIT 2 Willingness to Work Abroad, by Country Increase of greater than 10 percentage points Decrease of greater than 10 percentage points No arrow = no change, or no change greater than 10 percentage points CHANGE FROM 2014 TO 2018 Canada Costa Rica Cyprus Czech Republic Ecuador Finland Guatemala France Kazakhstan Malaysia Nepal Panama Serbia Sweden Switzerland Thailand Trinidad and Tobago UK Uzbekistan Vietnam Algeria Benin Cameroon Colombia Ghana Iran Jamaica Kenya Luxembourg Nigeria Norway South Korea Egypt India Qatar Saudi Arabia Tunisia United Arab Emirates Venezuela Albania Australia Barbados Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Bulgaria Dominican Republic El Salvador Ivory Coast Honduras Japan Kyrgyzstan Morocco Mexico Pakistan Peru Philippines Singapore South Africa China Croatia Greece Hungary Israel Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia Slovakia Slovenia Afghanistan Angola Argentina Austria Belarus Belgium Denmark Estonia Germany Indonesia Ireland Italy Myanmar Netherlands Nicaragua Portugal Romania Spain Turkey Ukraine US Percentage of respondents who are already working abroad or are willing to move abroad for work >90% >80%90% >70%80% >60%70% >50%60% 50% “ Willingness to take a job abroad is 67% among digital experts higher than the world average.The Boston Consulting Group The Network 7 opment, and artificial intelligence or machine learning say they would be willing to move to a new country for the right job. Thats 10 per- centage points above the global average. By contrast, companies and countries may have challenges recruiting foreigners for less glamorous but still crucial blue-collar jobs. Countries need people to work in hotel house- keeping, take care of their elderly, repave the roads, and work the graveyard shift in manu- facturing plants. But the workers who might be most inclined to consider these positions those in service-sector or manual jobs with no more than secondary educationsrank rela- tively low in mobility. Just 50% of them are willing to move abroad for work, 7 percentage points below the global average. The reasons why people would be open to living abroad have shifted somewhat since 2014. Four years ago, the top reason was to broaden ones personal experience. Personal experience still matters in 2018, but two more practical motivationsbetter career opportu- nities and a better standard of livinghave risen in importance. Perhaps not surprisingly, practical reasons loom large in the emigration attitudes of people in politically unstable countries (de- fined by the World Bank as countries where corruption is high and political rights are limited). First and foremost, respondents in such countrieswith a willingness to relocate of 60%, above the averageare looking for a better standard of living. Workers in unsta- ble countries like Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo put less weight on person- al factors such as getting to know a different culture. Those are more likely to be cited by people in highly stable countries as reasons for pursuing a job abroad. (See Exhibit 3.) EXHIBIT 3 Political Stability Aects the Motivations to Work Abroad Sources: 2018 BCG/The Network proprietary web survey and analysis. Note: Data from the World Bank was used to rate each country's overall stability. Motivations of the workforce in countries with low political stability Motivations of the workforce in countries with high political stability Achieve a better standard of living Enjoy better career opportunities Broaden personal experience Acquire work experience Improve salary prospects Avoid