16 June 2020
New Delhi
Ms. Gayatri Kanth, who works for the International Organization of Employers (IOE), Switzerland, spoke about brain drain and its impact on the growth of countries, during the virtual panel discussion held on the topic ‘Will there be Brain Drain Again post COVID-19?’ hosted by the Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism [GRFDT], on 16th June 2020.
Impact of COVID-19
Ms. Gayatri Kanth began her address by acknowledging that we are facing an “unprecedented crisis in the wake of COVID-19, which is already changing the way we think about migration”. Migrants and business communities are among the worst hit by the pandemic as economies are wrecked, global mobility has come to a halt and countries are revising their border policies resulting in huge repatriation of largely low skilled workers. Ms. Kanth added that the mobility of high skilled migrants is also affected as shown by the recent banning of visas to high skilled workers in the US. Ms. Kanth highlighted the excerpt from the International Labour Organization [ILO] report issued on 29 April 2020, which stated that the “impact of COVID-19 is expected to cost 305 million full time jobs and more than 436 million enterprises face high risks of serious disruption worldwide, costing companies trillions of dollars in lost economic opportunity.” In the light of these economic and political upheavals, migration pathways are facing complex challenges.
Skill Mobility Post Pandemic
Ms. Kanth highlighted the fact that talent tends to gravitate towards an environment that is abuzz with economic activity and which enables ease of doing business, attracts investments and nurtures achievements.
“Skills are attracted to challenges and possibilities. At a time like this, when there is economic demographic and epidemiological transition, skills become more and more critical to the development and achievement of the sustainable development goals”: Ms. Gayatri Kanth Ageing demography accelerates skill mobility to developed countries where high skilled migrants are used to fuel their economies. Developing countries on the other hand, are predicted to have more workers than their economies can absorb, at all skill levels. The speaker presents the reasons for brain drain through a two-point reasoning, one being the conducive environment offered by host countries along with better quality of living, and the second being most source countries unable to provide enough job opportunities for high skilled laborers who therefore prefer to migrate internationally.
Pros and Cons of Brain Drain
The negative effects of the brain drain, as put forth by Ms. Gayatri Kanth include, “the reduction of human capital, skills shortage, limited capacity to innovate and adopt more advanced technologies”, along with other consequences like “reduction in tax incomes, reduction in market size, reduced productivity leading to lower economic growth and loss of investments”.
But the countries of origin also stand to benefit from this brain drain through “return migration of skilled laborers, receiving remittances and incentives for investment in sectors like education and training, and improve governance.”
COVID-19 may act as an additional trigger in causing brain drain due to negative fallouts like dysfunction of a country or economic collapse. Ms. Kanth emphasized that the gaps between skill requirement and skill availability cannot be bridged by short term quick fix solutions. This requires the concerned governments to create a database on the skills that are required and address the reasons for migration of citizens with those skill sets, to developed countries.
Ms. Gayatri Kanth concluded by highlighting the need for mutual consent and agreements between countries of both origin and destination to ensure that the “mobility of skills does not impair the growth of one country at the cost of another country”.
Megha Rangaraj, the writer is an under graduate student with Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts, Pune, India. She is an avid advocate for the emancipation of women and passionate about social issues. She can be found on twitter handle @MeghaRangaraj