The emigration of highly educated workers to European countries is viewed with concern in the latest World Bank report. The fall 2019 report "Migration and Brain Drain from Countries in the Region" notes that 40% of Albanians in emigration are highly educated and have emigrated for better living conditions.
The rate of emigration of skilled workers is high, especially in some of the lower-income countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. People with higher education make up 55% of the total number of immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than 40% of immigrants from Armenia and Latvia, and nearly 40% of immigrants from Albania, Moldova, North Macedonia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Romania and Tajikistan have emigrated.
Countries with fewer highly skilled workers experience higher immigration. Various factors drive brain drain from these countries. In addition to higher wages, they include opportunities for professional advancement and training, a better future for family members, and better living and working conditions.
Although according to the report, employment has increased with more jobs being created, poverty remains high, with 34.6% of Albanians living on less than $5.5 a day.
Employment continued to grow – although slowing growth led to a slowdown in job creation, while poverty has stagnated. Meanwhile, unemployment reached a record low of 11.5 percent in the second quarter of 2019. Real wages grew by 3.3 percent on average, mainly in services (trade and transport, and tourism sectors). Poverty remains high, as around 34.6 percent of Albanians are estimated to live on less than $5.5 per day per capita in 2019.
The World Bank's report on the latest developments in the Europe and Central Asia region states that the percentage of migrants in Europe has grown rapidly over the past four decades, with one in three migrants in the world now going to Europe.
(BalkanWeb)
