UK ‘brain drain’ filling India

LONDON: Britain suffers the worst brain drain in the world, even more so than India which comes in third after the Philippines at second place.

One in six British graduates’ desert the UK to work abroad according  to the first major study of the ‘brain drain’ crisis carried out by the World Bank. More than 1.44 million graduates have left the UK to look for more highly paid jobs and better lifestyles. While India has about one million graduates leaving for jobs abroad.

The top three destinations for British graduates are the US, Canada and Australia. The migration far outweighs the 1.26 million immigrant graduates in the UK, leaving a net “brain loss” of  some 200,000 people. Britain has lost more skilled workers including scientists, bankers and doctors than any other country in the world and has failed miserably at holding onto homegrown talent.

Frederic Docquier, one of the report’s authors, said: “It does show an  economic problem for developed countries. For countries such as the UK, a brain drain is clearly a loss. It may impact the rate of growth and the number of innovations that create growth in the long-run”.

He added the relatively low level of university education in the UK, which means the exodus of professionals is more keenly felt, exacerbated the problem. Fewer than 20 per cent of Britons are educated to degree level.  Previous studies have also found that graduates, who leave college with debts of £13,000, are forced to accept low paid, boring jobs if they stay on in the UK to pay off their debts.

Graduates are even going to India to work in call centres. Last week,  a survey found that UK graduates were prepared to fill an expected 16,000 Indian call-centre vacancies by 2009. A report earlier this year said a Scottish history graduate quit his £21,000 a year job for Sky Television to work in an Indian call centre. 

Last month UK’s Minister for Immigration and Asylum Tony McNulty at a reception by the Labour Friends of India had sharply pointed out the problem. “Our focus is not how to stop Indians coming over here, but how to prevent talented educated graduates of Indian origin leaving the UK to work in India,” said McNulty. His sentiments have been echoed in the World Bank report.