Korea Ranked 27th Out of 28 In OECD Human Development Index

It was found that Korea is poorly utilizing its human resources and there are concerns over reducing national competitiveness caused by ‘brain drain’ to foreign countries.

The Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education & Training on April 7 released a report entitled “2002 Korea’s Human Development Index.” Among the 28 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Korea ranked 27th in the Human Development Index, followed only by Portugal.

Switzerland’s International Management Development (IMD) conducted a study in 2002 on utilization of highly skilled workers in labor markets of 49 countries. According to the IMD study, Korea was placed 22nd, lagging far behind the U.S. (5th) and Japan (12th) in terms of mobilizing skilled workers.

In Brain Drain Index which examined whether brain drain had a negative impact on national competitiveness, Korea that ranked 39th, showing that ‘brain drain’ in Korea has reached a serious point where its national competitiveness is more severely undermined than in the U.S.(1st), Japan (21st), and Germany (16th).

The number of Korean emigrant workers was on the rise since the economic crisis in 1997– 3,287 in 1997; 5,267 in 1998; 5,267 in 1999; 8,369 in 2000; and 6,079 in 2001.

According to a study on whether education system and university education are appropriate for students’ competence development, international competitiveness of Korea education is very low, taking the places of 32th and 41th in terms of education system and universities respectively.

An officer at the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training said, “We need to come up with measures for fostering and utilizing human resources in order to reduce the gap in human resources with that of advanced nations.”

Seong-Chul Hong sungchul@donga.com