South Korea Ranks 18th In Terms of Human Capital Flight According To The World Talent Report 2015; 'Brain Drain' Poses A Threat To The Country's Global Competitiveness

South Korea's global competitiveness is highly affected by an outflow of talented and skilled people, the World Talent Report 2015 by the Institute for Management Development (IMD) showed Thursday.

The said report by Switzerland's Institute for Management Development revealed that South Korea ranks 18th out of 61 countries that were studied in terms of human capital flight, Yonhap News reported Thursday.

The phenomenon, known as "brain drain", poses a challenge to poor countries because the upsurge of skilled members in the community has been known contribute to a country's rapid growth, and with these people preferring to work overseas instead of their homeland they leave in their wake the potential risk of eventually limping the country's development.

In a survey conducted in 2012, 60 percent of 1,400 South Koreans in the United States with doctorate degrees in engineering and natural sciences showed no intention of returning to Korea. The number of students going abroad to study is higher than those coming back to the country by a 2.5 to one margin.

In terms of education, South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism noted that the country's education system is "mediocre at best", The Diplomat noted in a report on Sept. 13, 2014. This condition has urged many South Koreans to opt for education abroad.

To alleviate the problem, the government is pursuing various measures to attract foreign talent into the country. This has resulted in an improvement on South Korea's overall ability to attract talent. According to the IMD's report, South Korea's standing is up by nine notches at 31st place this year, compared to its ranking in 2014.

While the World Talent Report noted high scores for South Korea in the fields of skilled labor, government spending on education and infrastructure on health services, the country had low marks in terms of cost-of-living index, opportunities for female workers and worker motivation.

Meanwhile, Switzerland is topping 2015's World Talent Report followed by Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway and the Netherlands to round up the top 5.