Talent
- Let’s Grab It
Rich nations are creaming talent from the poor. With
FTAs, this one-sided flow will worsen; the losers can’t
fight back.
Mar 5, 2001
Peeved by what he sees is globalisation’s disadvantages
to developing countries, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said it must
include human migration.
The concept was an invention of rich Western countries to
give ease to communication and capital movement, an ideology,
which was said to benefit poorer countries, he said.
It would be fairer if people were allowed to transmigrate
more freely but this was not accepted by rich nations, he
added. "Recently I offered the idea that 300 million
Chinese and 200 Indians migrate to Europe and they said
no."
Actually, there’s plenty of human migration these days but
not in a way Dr. Mahathir wants. Over the next decade millions
will move from poor to developed countries. Unfortunately
these will be mostly high-tech workers that the former needs
to get out of poverty.
Britain and some Middle Eastern countries want nurses and
teachers, even policemen, from Singapore - and almost everyone
wants a lot of IT workers from others, despite the electronic
slowdown.
Poorer Canadian provinces want professionals and businessmen
from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Some have recruited brokers to
get them on a commission basis..
The USA, with 150 million Internet users, faces a shortage
of 850,000 high-tech workers, recently agreed to let in
195,000 a year (compared with 115,000 currently) for three
years from 2002 mostly from Asia, to plug the gap.
And Europe is in even worse shape. With 15 million unemployed,
it will be short of 1.6 million IT workers by next year.
Several countries are relaxing their immigration laws to
bring them in – mostly from India.
We’re talking of big numbers. Training locals costs too
much and takes too long. The Internet is growing very rapidly.
Grabbing them ready-made from poorer nations is the best
solution.
And now - it is the turn of Australia.
Down Under the government has recently decided to allow
an extra 2,500 overseas students studying IT there to make
Australia their home.
From July next year the students would also be able to apply
for permanent residence visas without leaving Australia.
All Information and Communications Technology (ICT) occupations
would be recognised as key positions, removing the need
for employers to find out if there was an Australian who
could do the job.
Singapore is not spared the impact of this battle. With
a spate of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) coming up, the republic
will win a few and lose a lot more. It will open the door
for more of its trained people to leave.
By end of this year, Singapore and Japan will sign one.
Other countries will include New Zealand and Australia,
as well as US and Mexico.
Not enough details are available, but it is likely that
at least some – if not all - will make it easier for the
movements of trained people in and out to work abroad.
Poaching of talent has been going on for many years. Even
without FTAs, it will likely increase in future not only
in IT, but a host of other professionals, ranging from top
managers to accountants, from health workers to science
researchers.
The US is now more open to immigration and it remains the
primary destination for most economic migrants. Europe is
mixed. Not all countries welcome them with zeal. Even homogeneous
Japan feels the pressure to open its doors.
In August last year, Germany succeeded bringing in 20,000
IT workers, mostly from India, but only after facing strong
opposition.
Singapore’s needs
The demand for IT professionals hereremains strong despite
the downturn.
The Republic (with only 95,000) needs some 250,000 IT professionals
in the next 10 years or 25,000 a year. Currently its institutions
are producing half the demand. Many of them are required
by software companies based here and servicing the region.
Currently it brings in only 1,000 a year (salaries ranging
between S$3,000-$4,500) – from India, Malaysia, Philippines,
Indonesia, Vietnam and China. It needs a lot more, many
of them from India a growing source of supply.
Last year computer firm Aceteh recruited about 50 Vietnamese
graduates to work here on a two-year contract. Singapore
is also courting high-tech workers from Taiwan. In a one-day
seminar in Taipei, it recruited 230 participants.
Many skilled workers make it here as transit to settle in
the US or Europe. Poaching also happens between rich economies.
Last year, for example, 1,000 Australians left for jobs
in California.
A New Cause Of Conflicts
Poaching had always worked against the losing nations. Every
developing country that I have worked in has been a victim.
It’s not always the poacher’s fault.
Mauritius, for example, used to have a government department
whose task was to find jobs overseas in the US, Britain
or France for its doctors and nurses.
Can you imagine training and investing so much in its people
and then encourage them to emigrate to another country?
That’s what it was. Unsurprisingly they never return.
Myanmar - former Burma – has lost millions of professionals
and businessmen since World War Two because of the lack
of domestic opportunities and basic personal liberties.
Today it can’t get out of the hole they dug for themselves.
It has lost many of its best professionals, technicians
and business brains. If its ruling generals knew the harm
they never showed it. Today, you can’t hit any major Western
city without running into them.
Entire populations of Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese or people
of any developing country you care to name have become economic
migrants in - and benefiting - the rich countries.
Of the large numbers of Malaysians who emigrate to Australia,
about 10 per cent are Malays despite their bumiputra rights
at home.
Much of the blame is placed on governments for failing to
provide meaningful jobs or appropriate liberties to retain
their knowledge-people. Others, however, say the fault lies
in the unfair system of globalisation which punishes the
poor.
Permanent Poverty
Will the continuing poaching cause permanent poverty and
lead one day to world conflict, even war?
How can a developing country afford to keep spending so
much to train a small number of people only to have them
pinched year after year ever pull itself out of poverty?
This has become a vicious circle that never goes away and
condemns the poor.
The brain drain is raising pressures on Southeast Asia –
and its governments.
In Malaysia, opposition leader Lim Kit Siang, commenting
on Australia’s immigration relaxation, hit out at Dr Mahathir’s
failure to act despite the national plan to leapfrog into
the Information Age
"What is he doing?" he demanded. "If the
government is serious… it should be focussing national energies
on how to attract the best talents from home and abroad."
Singapore’s
universities, he said, were fast and aggressive in recruiting
500 school-leavers from Malaysia’s Chinese Independent Secondary
Schools every year – by recognising the Unified Exams Certificate.
The new IT world is like a dream come true for poor countries
like India and China. They are producing millions of high
tech graduates capable of pushing their countries out of
poverty.
Now that dream is fading.
Seah
Chiang Nee
