Markets
Ranked: The Most Valuable Nation Brands
Ranked: The Most Valuable Nation Brands
Talent and capital are increasingly mobile, so a country’s image and reputation — its brand — can have a big impact on the country’s economic fortunes.
This is particularly true in smaller nations such as Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates, which have all cultivated an investment and tourism-friendly image. Whether it’s attracting talent or wooing investment dollars, highly ranked nation brands can often outperform their rivals in the global marketplace.
The effect of a country’s image on the brands based there and the economy as a whole makes a nation brand the most important asset of any state.
– David Haigh, CEO, Brand Finance
Today’s Chart of the Week uses data from Brand Finance’s Nation Brands report, which attempts to quantify the reputations of various countries around the world.
Quantifying Perception
The report breaks down the methodology in more detail, but here how the scoring system works. Brand Finance uses three pillars to calculate a Brand Strength Index (BSI) score:
- Goods & Services: Includes factors such as openness to tourism, market size, and trade rules
- Society: Includes factors such as quality of life, corruption, and cultural image
- Investment: Includes items such as talent retention, use of technology, R&D, taxation, and regulation
The BSI score is then used to calculate a hypothetical royalty rate, and to forecast revenues to ultimately derive a brand value (post-tax revenues discounted to calculate a net present value). This calculation produces the “Brand Value” of a country.
The Most Valuable Nation Brands
One of most impressive gains came from second-ranked China, which is rapidly closing the gap separating them from the United States. China’s brand value surged over 40% to $19.4 trillion — more than the cumulative brand value of the next five countries.
Not to be outdone, the United States also posted impressive numbers. Despite being a mature economy, the country’s brand value grew by 7.2% over the last year.
Here is the full top 10 list:
Rank | Country | Nation Brand Value | Change vs 2018 |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 🇺🇸 United States | $27.8T | +7.2% |
2 | 🇨🇳 China | $19.5T | +40.5% |
3 | 🇩🇪 Germany | $4.9T | -5.7% |
4 | 🇯🇵 Japan | $4.5T | +26.0% |
5 | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | $3.9T | +2.7% |
6 | 🇫🇷 France | $3.1T | -4.0% |
7 | 🇮🇳 India | $2.6T | +18.7% |
8 | 🇨🇦 Canada | $2.2T | -1.8% |
9 | 🇰🇷 South Korea | $2.1T | +6.7% |
10 | 🇮🇹 Italy | $2.1T | -4.7% |
Top Countries by Brand Strength
One characteristic of the brand value score is that it’s heavily weighted towards the world’s larger economies. The BSI score, by contrast, may be a more accurate reflection of a government’s guidance of its nation brand as it eliminates the inherent GDP advantage that these bigger economies have.
Using the BSI scoring method, Singapore comes out on top — as it has every year since it supplanted Germany in 2015. The highly prosperous city-state serves as the business hub of Southeast Asia and is renowned for its world-class education, healthcare, transport, and low crime levels. These factors, paired with the nation’s unwavering political stability and commitment to its ‘Future Economy’ strategy, makes the island a very strong and stable nation on the global stage.
The top 10 strongest nation brands:
Rank | Country | Brand Strength Index (BSI) Score | Change vs 2018 | BSI Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 🇸🇬 Singapore | 90.5 | -1.9 | AAA+ |
2 | 🇨🇭 Switzerland | 89.9 | -0.3 | AAA+ |
3 | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | 89.6 | +1.9 | AAA+ |
4 | 🇩🇪 Germany | 88.2 | +3.5 | AAA |
5 | 🇱🇺 Luxembourg | 86.9 | +2.1 | AAA |
6 | 🇦🇪 U.A.E. | 86.6 | -1.9 | AAA |
7 | 🇫🇮 Finland | 86.4 | -1.0 | AAA |
8 | 🇯🇵 Japan | 85.8 | +1.9 | AAA |
9 | 🇺🇸 United States | 85.7 | +0.1 | AAA |
10 | 🇩🇰 Denmark | 85.6 | +2.6 | AAA |
The United States makes the top 10, but has fallen in the rankings since sitting at fourth place in 2014. That isn’t necessarily an indictment of the U.S. though — the country’s rating has improved somewhat, moving from AA+ to AAA over that same time period.
Turkey was one of the success stories of 2019. The country’s BSI score rebounded by nearly 50% after experiencing a large drop in 2018.
Technology
Ranked: America’s 20 Biggest Tech Layoffs Since 2020
How bad are the current layoffs in the tech sector? This visual reveals the 20 biggest tech layoffs since the start of the pandemic.

Ranked: America’s 20 Biggest Tech Layoffs This Decade
The events of the last few years could not have been predicted by anyone. From a global pandemic and remote work as the standard, to a subsequent hiring craze, rising inflation, and now, mass layoffs.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, essentially laid off the equivalent of a small town just weeks ago, letting go of 12,000 people—the biggest layoffs the company has ever seen in its history. Additionally, Amazon and Microsoft have also laid off 10,000 workers each in the last few months, not to mention Meta’s 11,000.
This visual puts the current layoffs in the tech industry in context and ranks the 20 biggest tech layoffs of the 2020s using data from the tracker, Layoffs.fyi.
The Top 20 Layoffs of the 2020s
Since 2020, layoffs in the tech industry have been significant, accelerating in 2022 in particular. Here’s a look at the companies that laid off the most people over the last three years.
Rank | Company | # Laid Off | % of Workforce | As of |
---|---|---|---|---|
#1 | 12,000 | 6% | Jan 2023 | |
#2 | Meta | 11,000 | 13% | Nov 2021 |
#3 | Amazon | 10,000 | 3% | Nov 2021 |
#4 | Microsoft | 10,000 | 5% | Jan 2023 |
#5 | Salesforce | 8,000 | 10% | Jan 2023 |
#6 | Amazon | 8,000 | 2% | Jan 2023 |
#7 | Uber | 6,700 | 24% | May 2020 |
#8 | Cisco | 4,100 | 5% | Nov 2021 |
#9 | IBM | 3,900 | 2% | Jan 2023 |
#10 | 3,700 | 50% | Nov 2021 | |
#11 | Better.com | 3,000 | 33% | Mar 2022 |
#12 | Groupon | 2,800 | 44% | Apr 2020 |
#13 | Peloton | 2,800 | 20% | Feb 2022 |
#14 | Carvana | 2,500 | 12% | May 2022 |
#15 | Katerra | 2,434 | 100% | Jun 2021 |
#16 | Zillow | 2,000 | 25% | Nov 2021 |
#17 | PayPal | 2,000 | 7% | Jan 2023 |
#18 | Airbnb | 1,900 | 25% | May 2020 |
#19 | Instacart | 1,877 | -- | Jan 2021 |
#20 | Wayfair | 1,750 | 10% | Jan 2023 |
Layoffs were high in 2020 thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, halting the global economy and forcing staff reductions worldwide. After that, things were steady until the economic uncertainty of last year, which ultimately led to large-scale layoffs in tech—with many of the biggest cuts happening in the past three months.
The Cause of Layoffs
Most workforce slashings are being blamed on the impending recession. Companies are claiming they are forced to cut down the excess of the hiring boom that followed the pandemic.
Additionally, during this hiring craze competition was fierce, resulting in higher salaries for workers, which is now translating in an increased need to trim the fat thanks to the current economic conditions.
Of course, the factors leading up to these recent layoffs are more nuanced than simple over-hiring plus recession narrative. In truth, there appears to be a culture shift occurring at many of America’s tech companies. As Rani Molla and Shirin Ghaffary from Recode have astutely pointed out, tech giants really want you to know they’re behaving like scrappy startups again.
Twitter’s highly publicized headcount reduction in late 2022 occurred for reasons beyond just macroeconomic factors. Elon Musk’s goal of doing more with a smaller team seemed to resonate with other founders and executives in Silicon Valley, providing an opening for others in tech space to cut down on labor costs as well. In just one example, Mark Zuckerberg hailed 2023 as the “year of efficiency” for Meta.
Meanwhile, over at Google, 12,000 jobs were put on the chopping block as the company repositions itself to win the AI race. In the words of Google’s own CEO:
“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today… We have a substantial opportunity in front of us with AI across our products and are prepared to approach it boldly and responsibly.”– Sundar Pichai
The Bigger Picture in the U.S. Job Market
Beyond the tech sector, job openings continue to rise. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed a total of 11 million job openings across the U.S., an increase of almost 7% month-over-month. This means that for every unemployed worker in America right now there are 1.9 job openings available.
Additionally, hiring increased significantly in January, with employers adding 517,000 jobs. While the BLS did report a decrease in openings in information-based industries, openings are increasing rapidly especially in the food services, retail trade, and construction industries.
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