| Business Environment |
May 9, 2019
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| He was listening to the radio at a noodle stand in the station in the morning while on his way to work. Two personalities, a man and a woman, were talking about working in foreign countries. The female personality asked the man, "There was a survey of highly skilled workers from all over the world about which country they would want to work in. There were 11 Asian countries listed. What do you think is the ranking of this country?" His country was one of the Asian countries. The male personality responded, "First, or second." He thought similarly. His country's economy was stagnant but even so, its GDP was third in the world. This country's technology is good. This country is safe. Maybe companies and citizens in this country don't have a sense of social discrimination. The landscape is beautiful, cities are clean, and the food was not bad, so many tourists came from abroad to visit. The woman told him the answer, "Eleventh, the last." She stated the ranking: 1. Singapore 2. Hong Kong 3. Indonesia 4. Malesia 5. Thailand 6. Philippines 7. China 8. India 9. Taiwan 10. Korea 11. This country. She explained about this survey. An institution in Switzerland annually held this  survey among 63 countries in order to rate which countries have a good business environment. For workers from abroad perspective, this country ranked 51 out of 63, rather bad.The male personality expressed shock, and they started to talk about why this country was so low for the attraction of foreign workers. He wanted to listen more, but the restaurant started to become crowded. He left. While walking to his job location, he started thinking about the reasons why foreigners didn't want to work in this country. Maybe one of the biggest reasons was language. In high ranking countries like Singapore and Hong Kong, they speak good English. As for his country, the English score of testing was the lowest in the world. He didn't think that skillful workers were willingly to study his country's complicated language. Recently he had a chance to talk to people from Malaysia and Thailand. Their English was good. The Philippines' public language is English. Indians normally speak English because their country has too many local languages. Another reason is maybe this country's inefficiency of business. He often heard that this country's productivity per worker was the worst in developed countries. It was famous that this country's workers tend to work overtime willingly. Also companies held meetings often, but only little things were decided. "And, in this country, maybe companies might not promote foreign workers suitably." He became gloomy. At lunch time, he quickly finished his lunch and started to search on the internet about the survey that was mentioned on the radio. The name of the survey was 'The IMD World Talent Ranking', which was rated by an association in Switzerland. They analyzed professionals' responses from about 63 countries. The data pertains to each country's quality of business environment. The items to rate countries varied from educational situation (from elementary school to college), workers' salaries, the society's safety, equality and fairness. Company's productivity and competitiveness, tax (low/high tax rates), workers' quality, etc. The question that the female personality used was 'Foreign highly-skilled personnel are attracted to your country's business environment.' Personnel means 'worker'. He checked on his country's page: 'Apprenticeships' ranked 10, 'Employee training' ranked 6. He could understand this. When he was young, the entrance exams for universities were tough, but after getting through, the students didn't study. It was said that companies would train their workers from scratch. 'Cost-of-living index' was 60. The prices in this country were still high. 'Quality of life' was 26, not bad. 'Personal security and private property rights' was 24, not bad. 'Health infrastructure' was 12. He felt lucky living in this country. 'Skilled labor' was 30, middle. 'Gross annual income' was 7! He couldn't think he was lucky as his income wasn't high at all. 'International experience of senior managers' was 62, the 2nd worst! 'Language skills' was 61, 3rd worst! And 'Foreign highly-skilled ...' was 51.(In the paper this country wasn't the worst in Asia, maybe the broadcast mentioned about the previous year's data.) Maybe skilled people don't want to work with managers whose language was poor and lack international experience. The overall ranking of his country was 29, the middle. The top 10 was: 1. Switzerland 2. Denmark 3. Norway 4. Austria 5. Netherlands 6. Canada 7. Finland 8. Sweden 9. Luxembourg 10. Germany Switzerland is famous for being a permanent neutral country. People speak many languages. There are giant companies like Nestle, and watchmakers like Rolex and Omega. And, of course, good scenery and dairy products. He checked the top 10 ranking of the category: 'Foreign highly-skilled personnel are attracted to your country's business environment.' 1. Switzerland 2. UAE 3. Singapore 4. Canada 5. USA 6. Luxembourg 7. Netherlands 8. Ireland 9. Hong Kong 10. Qatar He thought that unless his country's ranking became at least 30 or so, this country's future would be dark. |
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*pertain to :関係する
*apprenticeship :徒弟制度
*gross :総計の