TIRANA, May 15 – Albania has made moderate progress in developing and deploying its human capital in the past couple of years, according to a human capital report published by the World Economic Forum.
Albania climbed six places in the 2015 Human Capital Index, ranking 66th out of 124 countries, yet lagging behind its regional competitors.
The index evaluating the levels of education, skills and employment available to people in five distinct age groups starting from under 15s to the over 65s, shows the under 15 age group has the best performance ranking Albania 59th on positive indicators of basic education survival rate and quality of primary school.
The 15-24 age group has the poorest performance ranking Albania 83rd on high level of unemployment rate estimated at around 29 percent.
On a 1 to 7 scale, the businesses community ranked Albania’s capacity to attract and retain talent at 3, indicating that many of the best and brightest leave to pursue opportunities abroad.
The report ranks Albania which has a population of around 3.2 million and unemployment rate of 16 percent as an upper-middle income country with GDP per capita of around $11,055 when adjusted by purchasing power parity.
Albania ranked 72nd in the first edition of the Human Capital Index in 2013 published by the World Economic Forum.
“Talent, not capital, will be the key factor linking innovation, competitiveness and growth in the 21st century,” says Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum.
“An ability to quantify human capital and set targets for its growth is ever more important today, as technological, geopolitical, demographic and economic forces profoundly reshape labour markets,” he adds.
