{"id":792,"date":"2007-10-09T01:00:45","date_gmt":"2007-10-09T09:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=792"},"modified":"2007-10-09T01:00:57","modified_gmt":"2007-10-09T09:00:57","slug":"the-truth-behind-asia%e2%80%99s-talent-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=792","title":{"rendered":"The Truth Behind Asia\u2019s Talent Markets"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ll never hear me contesting the idea that Asian talent markets are ripe to be the major force in the world economy.\u00a0 After all, when you have half the world\u2019s population, it\u2019s just logical to think you should eventually command half the world\u2019s senior talent.\u00a0 However, decades of cultural and infrastructure problems plague them as they struggle to catch up and create market conditions that allow them to produce the volume of talent they are capable of.<\/p>\n

Demography will also play a big role, especially as labour forces in both China and Japan shrink over the next two decades. This means, for instance, that the already difficult job of finding creative software-engineers will become ever harder in northern Asia, which in turn will increase demand for staff in India and other markets where demographic problems do not exist.<\/p>\n

But that only points to an even bigger threat which may take a generation to fix: education. In much of South-East Asia most people are educated only to the age of 12. More than half of the women in India are illiterate. Nearly two-thirds of the children in government primary schools in India cannot read a simple story. Half cannot solve simple numerical problems.<\/p>\n

China’s educational difficulties are different\u2014and often linked to the country’s history. Universities were closed during the Cultural Revolution and few well-educated people entered the workforce for over a decade. This has resulted in a lost generation of business people between the ages of 50 and 60, exactly the age group from where many of China’s corporate leaders should be drawn today.\u00a0\u00a0 ((Economist.com.\u00a0 August 16, 2007.\u00a0 “Capturing Talent<\/a>.”\u00a0 Retrieved from http:\/\/www.economist.com on September 10, 2007.))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I go back to an old argument of mine that India is the best positioned Asian economy, far ahead of China.\u00a0 Japan\u2019s culture and their investments have made them a global economic power, but India\u2019s English language capabilities and their better educational infrastructure is a major advantage.\u00a0 Add that they seem to have a major head start in developing knowledge industries in technology and services (call centers) and it looks quite promising.<\/p>\n

China seems to have all of the cultural, infrastructure and now QA issues that India did not.\u00a0 The tip of the iceberg is a lacking in educational infrastructure, the unseen portions of the iceberg is in the culture.<\/p>\n