ASEAN Economic Community fails to bridge skills gap (Asia Times, 31 July 2017)
Almost three million Southeast Asian professionals are working in Europe, North America and Oceania at a time when their home region is bidding to bridge skills gaps by facilitating greater labor mobility within its borders through the newly enacted Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Community (AEC). The region’s skills divide is stark. Singapore (13) is the only Southeast Asian country ranked in the top 20 in the World Economic Forum’s 2016 Human Capital Report for the quality of its workforce; Myanmar is rated 109th of 130 countries assessed, Laos 106th and Cambodia 100th. Malaysia (42), Thailand (48) and the Philippines (49) fall somewhere in the middle.