Skilled Migration:
a “non-zero-sum game”

The skilled migration is not part of a completely “zero-sum game”, because those who intend to leave, usually invest in additional training to increase the value of their skills and abilities and, so doing, aim to be more "attractive" in the destination Country. Obviously, not all those who wish to leave find the right abroad track. Therefore, due to the preliminary training, it is correct to think that the are two investments, one for those who manage to move alongside, and the other fot those who remain at home. The latter, however, having acquired additional skills, tend to re-enter on the domestic market, with obvious benefits also for the Country of origin.

Some Countries (see the case of the Philippines and the TESDA system, for example) have consolidated educational and training systems of international scope, with a view to pursuing the dual purpose of raising the educational standard at home, on the one hand, and facilitating the movement in terms of the circulation of brains (so as to invest in practice in a future return of the profiles originally started), on the other. Not infrequently (it is the case of the bilateral programs between Australia and Pacific Countries, for example, or even of the US CPCC program, vocational training initiative that recruits future mechatronics specialists to be sent to Germany to reinforce the Siemens ranks), these new profiles are created from scratch in a way that closely resembles the concept of customization, starting from an explicit collaboration with the Countries of future destination.

Many of the Emerging Economies also have a solid demand for workers with an Anglo-Saxon education, basing on the high quality standards that have always been attributed to Top Universities. It is therefore not surprising to see that, in the short and medium term, some of these Countries have ended up openly encouraging the creation of local academic branches (see for example the case of the international branch campuses established in China: the University of Nottingham has an office in Ningbo), or directly subsidize foreign scholarship (often in the form of study / work abroad programs, or as exchange initiatives) aimed at its students (the States created the Fulbright Foreign Student Program; United Kingdom goes for the Chevening Scholarship; Australia has even prepared the Australia Award), perhaps including a return clause for the final phase of the program itself (see the case of the Brazilian project Science Without Borders). At times, government action has been flanked (if not even preceeded) by the employers and professional associations stipulation of standards aimed at ensuring an international qualification (a best practice here is represented by the CISCO certification for ICT).

Abroad work experience, once re-entered in the pool of know-how of the Country of origin, can play a strategic weight and value, in terms of transfer of new technologies or good practices that may rather remain dormant. The open promotion carried out by the Countries of origin is coupled here with the support of those of destination, which for this purpose often provide temporary visas, both for highly specialized profiles and for those that could be defined as low-skilled.