Avoid inappropriate export of human capital from emerging countries!
January 31, 2024
Labor markets in less developed countries are frequently analyzed from different angles. Researchers put their emphasis often on institutional and physical working conditions, gender issues, child labor, (minimum) wages and wage disparities, social protection of workers, income distribution, health of the labor force, ethics, legal labor market rules and their enforcement or application, labor productivity, etc.
There exists also quite some literature about immigrant workers coming from the emerging world to Western countries. One special aspect, however, seems to be neglected by most analysts with nexus to the headline of this article: the increasing efforts by foreign (Western) politicians to attract skilled workers to their home countries.
The complicated issue of skilled worker immigration
We all know that the world has become tougher in recent years with extensive movements on global labor markets for various reasons – due to poverty, covid, persecution and wars in less developed countries. These developments are certainly disliked in advanced democratic countries – but many times politicians and voters want to see a visible downsizing of the unskilled labor force inflow from poor countries. Instead, they prefer a growing inflow of skilled workers from particularly Asia and Africa.
Whatever one may think about this less humanitarian positioning, there is at least some logic in it. First, Western institutions cannot cope with necessary administration anymore. Second, politicians are often no longer capable to handle the protests from the extreme right. Third, the strong demographic changes with shrinking population in mostly mature countries – but also, for example, in China and Russia – has already led to serious shortages of skilled experts within the EU, particularly in Germany (“Fachkräftemangel”).
Regarding Europe, we can at least base a lot of knowledge on relatively reliable statistics. This is, however, mostly not the case when it comes to statistical developments on labor markets in emerging or really poor countries.
Not even China and India provide global analysts with acceptable labor market information. Sure, both countries have an enormous size which by definition makes the production of statistics very difficult. China, for example, therefore measures only urban unemployment and has recently even stopped to announce the embarrassingly high youth unemployment. It may be added that not very much can be read in journals about the currently high unemployment of young Indian academics.
Ethical shortcomings
Looking at labor market conditions in many lagging countries, I cannot find it very ethical that heads of governments and ministers from EU-countries and other advanced countries increasingly travel around in Africa, Asia and Latin America to attract specialized labor force to their own advanced countries.
This active way of marketing should be considered as inacceptable. Unnecessary “brain drain” from emerging countries would be the consequence, hindering there progress in the society and a better economic future.
As regards countries and companies in our part of the world, sales to emerging countries could or would develop less favorably than in a world without the mentioned kind of human capital loss.
For this reason, Western governments should rather give skills to emerging countries than take too much of their precious human capital.
Hubert Fromlet
