ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is among the world’s 38 per cent countries which are facing a ‘talent crisis’, thus falling short of fully realising people’s economic potential at all stages of economic development largely due to unemployment and ineffective deployment of skills throughout the workforce.

The ‘Human Capital Report 2017’ released by the Davos-based World Economic Forum (WEF) says these failures to translate investment in education during the formative years into opportunities for higher-quality work during the working lifetime contributes to income inequality by blocking the two pathways to social inclusion, education and work.

The world has developed only 62pc of its human capital as measured by this index. Or, conversely, nations are neglecting or wasting, on an average, 38pc of their talent.

Across the index, there are only 25 nations that have tapped 70pc of their people’s human capital or more. In addition, 50 countries score between 60pc and 70pc.

A further 41 countries score between 50pc and 60pc, while 14 countries remain below 50pc, meaning these nations are currently leveraging less than half of their human capital.

With only 62pc of the world’s human capital stock fully developed, the United States and Germany are among the best-performing nations in a top 10 category dominated by smaller European countries.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2017