from doctors to engineers – Corriere.it

The flight of young graduates who leave the country to find better salaries and career opportunities across the border does not stop. According to the data processing by the Ministry of the University and Istat published by Il Sole 24 ore, the transfer abroad, the famous brain drain affects between 5% and 8% of Italian graduates. An estimated 248,000 graduates are exported in the entire 2012-2021 period and from the pandemic the balance between those who leave and those who remain negative: -79 thousand people between 25 and 34 years old with a degree in their pocket. Which opens up a profound reflection on the future of the Italian labor market.

Mobility is not the problem

The mobility of talent shouldn’t be a problem in a country that thrives on international connections and collaborations, but the issue for Italy, which is losing already scarce resources: 28% have college degrees versus an OECD average of 40%. And what’s more, we bring them to emigrate but we don’t attract them from abroad. If in the North this phenomenon is mitigated by the arrival of young graduates from the South, the same does not happen in the South which is losing heads (and not only). The Northern regions, especially Veneto and Lombardy, attract over 116,000 young people from the South and the Islands every year, the central regions such as Lazio almost 13,000 with an overall benefit of around 77,000 units. Obviously the price to pay for this compensation is the brain drain of the South. If you look at the under 40 audience in the South and Islands more than 1.6 million young people have been missing since 1995. How are you in over 25 years two cities like Naples and Palermo had disappeared.

Who leaves: doctors and engineers

Educated and qualified people pack their bags: doctors, engineers and IT specialists. The reasons for the “escape” are different but at the top we find salaries and career prospects. As a recent graduate, those who pack their bags a year after the title have an average monthly salary of around 1,963 euros net. Against the 1,384 euros received in Italy. At five years, the gap widens: more than 2,352 euros abroad against around 1,600 in Italy. Then contractual stability weighs: outside Italy, for example in Northern Europe – think of the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway – there is a lower incidence of work per VAT number. Permanent contracts win: 51.8% abroad, 27.6% in Italy.

Do the best leave?

Among those who decide to move abroad for work reasons there are generally the first in the class. He writes in the 2022 Almalaurea report: They tend to be more brilliant (particularly in terms of exam marks and regularity in studies) than those who decide to stay in their home country; and this was confirmed both among one-year and five-year graduates. Among second-level graduates in 2016, 63.1% of those employed abroad show a higher score in exams compared to the median number of graduates from their degree program (51.7% of those employed in Italy). Also in terms of regularity there are interesting differences: 84.8% of those who work abroad obtained their qualification within the first year outside the course, compared to 78.2% found among those who work in Italy, the researchers add.

As easy to understand, the inability to valorise the new generations of workers has serious consequences on the growth of the country. The brain drain costs us 1% of GDP every year. For the training of a graduate, according to the calculations of the North East Foundation, in fact, at least 300 thousand euros are needed. Talents donated to other countries which, in the face of facts, prove to be better equipped to welcome and value them.