It was in 1982 as the oil price reached more than a hundred dollar a barrel for the first time. The limit of resources and the vulnerability of economies were then discussed widely in the public as it is today. Stock prices were affected heavily due to the economical risks a high priced commodity exposes to shareholders. In a few years time, a similar scenario seems to be possible for Human Resources. A company’s availability to recruit and to retain key talent could have the same or an even higher impact on investor’s expectations in the future. This study examines actual ways Human Capital Risk is handled, shows scenarios of future development and discusses ways to optimize sourcing and retaining personnel in the future. Therefore, in a first step the global rise in demand for high qualified human capital is shown. In a second step, theoretical models to undertstand different factors of Human Capital Risk within a company are introduced. Even if not applicable today, the meaning of Human Capital within rating systems will increase as the impact on company’s performance rises. The main part part is the discussion about the result of a conducted survey held among companies in Germany and The Netherlands about their recruitment and retaining activities. Recruitment processes in Germany seems to be much longer than in The Netherlands. Exit Interviews are not exploited to its full extend and a structured retention management is not yet in place in the majority of the companies. Finally, modells of partnershipping with recruitment companies in order to improve the HR Management results are discussed.

Chapter 2, The global shortage of talent: Globalization, i.e. a worldwide movement towards economic, financial, trade, and communications integration” determined the political and economical development of most countries since the end of the cold war seventeen years ago. By this increasing internationalization the job landscape changed as well. International division of labor, e.g. outsourcing, specialization of service and production due to increased global competition are only some characteristics of this change. As a result, developing countries like India and China, but also European countries such as Czech Republic and Poland experienced massive foreign direct investment in order to outsource services a get access to the important domestic markets. Moreover lead the increased complexity of business of a globalized economy, combined with the outsourcing and automation of processes by Information Technology to a far higher percentage of knowledge intense jobs within the last years. This development was mainly seen in the developed countries. Intangible assets like special workforce skills and patents became much more important. Research has shown that the number of jobs that require a high level of judgment have grown three times faster than employment in general. While the increased need of knowledge workers stands for a raising demand for talent, a world-wide demographic change causes a decrease in supply. The baby-boomer generation is about to retire and the amount of skilled workforce will decline. As shown in Figure 1 the amount of 15-64 year old people is expected to reduce significantly in countries like Russia, Spain, Germany, Italy, South Korea and Japan within the next forty years (see also Figure 1: Projected Change in the working age population (15-64 years old) from 1970 to 2010 and 2010 to 2050). Governments around the world have recognized these upcoming changes and implemented various measures. With the treaties of Maastricht in 1992 and Amsterdam in 1997, the European Union enabled and enforced the exchange of labor resources between its countries, although there are still some restrictions recently, especially for the new member states like Poland and Czech Republic. Besides that, national governments in the EU such as France and Germany lowered visa regulation for foreign experts. It could be expected that considering 43.000 open jobs in the Information Technology sector in Germany for instance, these endeavors are going to be intensified. The world’s biggest economy, the Unites States of America, has a strong immigration record with a constant level of college graduates. The talent shortage is not as dramatic as in the European countries. However, the upcoming retirement of a high amount of employees out of the baby-boomer generation means a significant loss of knowledge. China and India, as the countries with the world’s two largest populations, increased their amount of university degrees intensively within the last decade (see also Figure 2). But besides the raw numbers, due to cultural limitations and differences in quality of education, only 12 percent of university graduates or an equal of 3.9 million are considered suitable and available for multinational companies within developing countries. These numbers do not only limit public concerns of uncapped outsourcing of domestic jobs to low wage countries, it also clarifies that high skilled resources from abroad are limited since only a fraction of those available and suitable are willing to relocate abroad. On the other hand, there are strong activities of the developing countries to retain and regain their well educated workers. Scholarship for returnees, the hundreds talents program” and a recruiting office in the Silicon Valley are only a few activities of China’s Government to re-recruit its talent. As a result, the number of Chinese students who studied abroad returning to China increased from 14.48% in 2001 to 31,34% in 2006. India also makes it as easy as possible for Indians living abroad to return home by special visa of Indian origin”. A survey of Indian executives living in the United States of America numbered 68% looking for opportunities to return while 12% had already decided to do so”. The South African Network of Skills Abroad (SANSA)” has a database that matches domestic skill shortages with expatriates' profiles providing these skills in order to allow South African companies to attract these lost talents to relocate (see Figure 2: Graduates in China, Chinese students abroad and students returning to china Figure 3: Global Talent Shortage - Percentage of employers having difficulties finding adequate staff for open jobs). There is a global shortage of talent and a competition between economies and companies all expected to increase within the upcoming years. Recent studies have shown, that in average 41% of employers worldwide are expecting problems recruiting adequate staff for their open positions 2007 – see also Figure 3.

• Human Capital Risk

• Recruitment

• Recruitment Companies

• Globalization

• War of talent

• Human Capital

Jan Veder (MBA), Account Manager at Huxley Associates Germany, an international recruitment company specialized in Finance and IT. Prior to his profession in Human Resources Area, Jan worked seven years for SIEMENS Medical Solutions, in his last position as a Head of Group in Offer Department Germany.