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Consultant opinion
Brain Drain |
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There are two aspects that trigger brain drain: a more appealing environment and more money.
What is an appealing environment? It is natural that "brains" want to be in contact with their peers. It is also natural that they search for development and for recognition from their equals. They need to communicate with other brains and exchange information and experience. They want to be able to compare with each other and move without restriction on a free "brain market". And, last but not least, they seek the opportunity to work with new technologies.
As soon as their surroundings limit interchange and communication, brains will look for a more suitable environment where peer contact and information will keep them in good shape. Corrupt or non-competitive climates as well as over-regularized or biased markets will drive highly skilled people away.
The question is simple: do these "brains" - be they students, researchers, scientists, engineers, IT experts, doctors or managers - find the right climate to live and work in this country?
They hardly have, so far, if you look at survey results, which show that between 1989 and 2004 5.4% of Romania′s population emigrated1. Interestingly enough, during the last couple of years more and more professionals who left with the idea of making a living abroad now start looking for jobs in Romania. Most of those who leave do so with the clear intention of gathering knowledge and experience and returning back home. This is the case for students too, who by the way have had this custom of traveling during their studies ever since universities were invented. Let us not be misled by the large number of smart young people who are looking for scholarships and grants abroad. 90% of the people leaving Romania return, according to World Bank surveys with returned migrants2. And when they return they usually have more skills and know-how and will transfer them to their home country.
What seems to be quite a trend is that a considerable number of expatriates who came to Romania for one or two years are changing plans and bringing - or starting - their families down here. This observation was recently confirmed by an HR executive of a large multinational who observed that expats being assigned a job in this country very often extend their stay here - either by prolonging their assignment or by getting a different job in Romania.
To put it briefly: in the private sector the climate has become attractive and things are looking up. There are lots of interesting jobs, salaries are comparably high, and the Romanian state has settled a quite encouraging framework for entrepreneurship (easy set up of new companies and the reduced income tax). I would venture and say that brain drain, the feared phenomenon, is dropping off in this area, and it is being replaced by "brain circulation", a normal and welcome tendency in any environment of highly skilled professionals.
Things look quite differently in the state-owned enterprises, where the flight of the elite is still bound to happen in areas like healthcare, as long as the system hardly allows for equal job opportunities for young people, or in research, where Romania still cannot compete with traditional long-established technology centers. Brain drain is two-fold here: part of the skilled professionals look for careers or grants abroad, part of them leave for better-paid jobs in the industry.
What can be done in order to reduce the extent of irreplaceable losses and make it worthwhile for highly trained professionals to stay in Romania is to offer financial incentives as lower income taxes for the categories of professionals that want to be retained here. Another one would be to encourage mobility. Paradoxically enough this can have the consequence of lowering the degree of emigrations, because lots of them occur precisely because of feeling the lack of possibilities for free movement.
1UNICEF TransMONEE Database and national statistical offices cited in Migration and Remittances, Europe and Central Asia Regions, The World Bank 2006, p.116
2See Migration and Remittances, Europe and Central Asia Regions, The World Bank 2006, p.18
Sandra Jitianu
Consultant Ensight
This article was initially published in American BusinessNet - the official publication of AmCham Romania
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