Talent attraction: Luxembourg retains the top spot for a third consecutive year

21 December 2023

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2023 Global Talent Competitiveness Index

Luxembourg’s top ranking in attracting talent is largely due to its openness to the outside world and social protection.

Cedric Letsch

For the third consecutive year, Luxembourg is the best performing country in the world for attracting talent, according to the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI). This top position is mainly due to its external openness (1st) and internal openness (5th) which also results in a high tolerance of immigrants (3rd).

Overall, Luxembourg ranked 11th in 2023 (likewise in 2022) but its score improved to 72.88, from 71.58 the previous year.

Attracting talent thanks to top ranking for “external openness”

The country also performs well when it comes to retaining its workforce (9th), with its world-class pension system (1st), environmental performance (6th) and social protections (5th) helping to retain talent (ranked 5th in brain retention).

Luxembourg’s pool of professional and technical skills (18th) is a key weakness, making the improvement of medium-level skills (18th) is a priority.

Heatmap: Rankings on GTCI overall and by pillar (Figure A3), 2023 Global Talent Competitiveness Index

The GTCI report is published annually by the INSEAD business school, in partnership with Portulans Institute and the Human Capital Leadership Institute. The report is a comprehensive annual benchmarking report that measures how countries and cities grow, attract and retain talent. It provides a unique resource for decision makers to understand the global talent competitiveness picture and develop strategies to boost their competitiveness. The 2023 report covers 134 countries from 63 economies around the world across all groups of income and levels of development.

Why do researchers choose Luxembourg as a research destination?

The multicultural environment and collaborative nature of interdisciplinary research is one of the most rewarding elements of doing research here in Luxembourg.
India Pinker (Luxembourg Institute of Health)

Read full article to discover India Pinker’s portrait

Given the fact that Luxembourg strongly promotes research, a lot of financial support is provided for building state-of-the-art laboratories to conduct world-class research. We can thus perform our research with newer infrastructures equipped with the latest generation of mobile robots, latest and powerful computing and latest generation of sensors.
Hriday Bavle (University of Luxembourg)

More about Hriday Bavle’s research path in Luxembourg

Over the past years of being here, I have noticed a significant increase in the number of individuals from my country applying and coming to conduct research in Luxembourg. This means that Luxembourg’s reputation as a flourishing and emerging university has attracted numerous researchers and scientists from various parts of the world.
Saba Tabean (Luxembourg Institute of Science & Technology)

Read full article to learn more about Saba Tabean’s journey

The institutions are extremely well equipped with all the necessary physical infrastructure, materials, and other resources required to conduct research.
Karan Singhal (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research)

Check out Karan Singhal’s story

Discover more researchers who chose Luxembourg in our series “In Conversation with Young Researchers“

“In Conversation with Young Researchers” series

Luxembourg is the most attractive European country for international jobseekers

In addition, the 2022 report “Brain gain or drain? How shifts in international job search are accelerating global competition for talent” by Indeed Hiring Lab, ranked Luxembourg as the most attractive destination for international jobseekers. Discover the article in the box below.