Kazakhstan, an emerging economy moving from a communist centralized command approach to global market participation, shares issues with other republics in the Common Wealth of Independent States. Competitive advantages that bode well for its successful transition include abundant oil reserves, a developing legal system, and a government that appears to have learned from the mistakes of other CIS nations. However, the Republic has serious problems of population decline, poor infrastructure, and workforce habits incompatible with a market economy. This paper focuses on labor market and human resource issues that must be addressed of Kazakhstan to be competitive in the world areas. This paper focuses on the economic and human changes in the republic of Kazakhstan since its 1991 independence and assesses the country\u27s potential for competitiveness in the global economy. Developing human resources is essential to achieve sustainable competitive advantage (Hoskisson, et al., 2000; Soulsby & Clark, 1996) so we will pay particular attention to Kazakhstan\u27s workforce as a key to the country\u27s competitiveness. Although there is variation in the way the CIS countries have adopted to a market-driven economy, the Republic of Kazakhstan is an interesting case study of the process. The information is enhanced by the fact that much of the history described was experienced first-hand by one of the authors
