More and more qualified people are moving from poor to rich countries to fill vacancies in specialist areas like engineering, computing and medicine. Some people believe that by encouraging the movement of such people, rich countries are stealing from poor countries. Others feel that this is only part of the natural movement of workers around the world. Give your opinion.

More and more qualified people are moving from poor to rich countries to fill vacancies in specialist areas like engineering, computing and medicine. Some people believe that by encouraging the movement of such people, rich countries are stealing from poor countries. Others feel that this is only part of the natural movement of workers around the world. Give your opinion.

 

Ielts - MIgration of Skills 

One of the most common trends being noticed across the world is migration of skilled labor, from developing nations, to various affluent countries. This trend has come for some severe criticism from various quarters with some even going to extent of terming this as stealing of skills despite some insisting that this is a natural phenomenon. 

The fact of elite countries robbing poor nations, of their skilled labor, is accentuated by skilled immigration programs being hosted by several countries. Several nations, in an attempt to populate their domestic labor pools with adequately trained people, host attractive skills migration programs to lure qualified tradesmen and professionals from all over the world, majorly the developing nations. To make the offers more attractive, the governments offer several sops, like allowing professionals to be accompanied by their families; granting them permanent residence to enable them to enjoy all the privileges at par with the nationals.

But, the charges leveled by the critics of this movement makes little sense, as the people with qualifications and illustrious track records, on their side,  are highly mobile. Such professionals and specialized tradesmen feel moving to richer destinations in search of greener pastures – better remunerations and progressive careers – is their fundamental right.

Besides the highly mobile professionals, already employed, there are numerous others with qualifications in engineering, medicine and IT, who are either unemployed or do not have jobs to match their skill sets, in their countries of origins since the most of impoverished countries lack necessary infrastructure and resources to generate employment for these people. These people have no option but to look for employment in elite economies.

In the nutshell, the charge of rich countries robbing poor countries of their skilled manpower is baseless, and quite fickle.