Plugging brain drain

A recent report released by the World Bank, Malaysian Economic Monitor: Brain Drain 2011, highlighted that Malaysia is facing an accelerating brain drain. According to the report, brain drain – the migration of talent across borders – touches the core of Malaysia’s aspiration to become a high-income nation.

Estimated figures put the country’s workforce diaspora in 2010 at one million (out of a 27 million population) attributing a third of this migrated workforce as brain drain. In fact, the number of skilled Malaysians working overseas is now three times larger than two decades ago.

Analysts say that there is a range of factors motivating Malaysians to move abroad which include better pay, career prospects, quality of education and quality of life. However, the major obstacle to retaining talent is Malaysia’s inclusiveness policies, which favour ethnic majority Malays since the non-Malays make up the bulk of leaving talent, according to the World Bank report.

This group of educated individuals are heading to various destinations throughout the globe that include Singapore, Australia, Brunei, UK and the US. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of talent being developed in Malaysia or lack of educated workers coming into the country.

Malaysia is not alone in its struggles. Late last year, Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou asked the National Security Council to set up a task force to look into the “talent deficit” problem in Taiwan.

According to a preliminary report released by this Council, at least 700,000 Taiwanese are working in Shanghai and sectors such as healthcare, academia and IT are facing the biggest drain. These skilled workers are also moving to Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea. Many who have left the country cite better pay and bigger opportunities as reasons for moving.

Karin Clarke, Regional Director, Singapore and Malaysia, Randstad notes that an increasingly mobile workforce, an increased number of students studying abroad and the need to make themselves more marketable with overseas experience are some of the contributing factors to the brain drain in Asia.

Recruitment company, Hudson issued an annual employment outlook survey stating that China, Hong Kong and Singapore are facing difficulties retaining talent. Some 52% of surveyed employers in Singapore, 36% in HK and 26% in China state that they would find recruiting talent this year a major HR challenge.

Bringing them home

Governments across the region have been introducing new policies to lure their educated workers back home. The Malaysian government set up a taskforce, Talent Corp in January, which revealed two different programmes to attract Malaysians back – the Long-term Resident’s Pass for returning Malaysians and the Returning Experts Programme, which is an incentivised tax programme. Moreover, the corporation is also planning on forming an overseas network for Malaysians who can still contribute to the economy.

China too has a National Talent Development Plan which aims to build a skilled local workforce in the next 10 years. It will see China moving away from manufacturing to focus on becoming a global leader in innovation. The plan is expected to increase the local talent pool from 114 million to 180 million by 2020. Government-allocated spending on HR is also expected to grow from 10.75% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to 15% by 2020. Also, Taiwan has set up the Council for Economic Planning and Development to come up with policies to address the country’s brain drain.

Analysts believe that companies too should play a part in attracting talent. “Companies need to be strategic in their hiring mentality and have the future in mind with each and every vacancy. Employers need to be able to attract top talent by engaging them in their employer brand and offer a wide range of benefits, training and career development opportunities as part of the package as well as a competitive salary,” states Clarke.