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PROBABLY for the first time ever we have had substantial facts and figures on Malaysia’s brain drain – and it has taken the World Bank to come out with this (see our cover story this issue).
The World Bank simply defines brain drain as the migration of talent across borders. It is instructive what it says.
“For Malaysia to stand (sic) success in its journey to high income, it will need to develop, attract and retain talent. Brain drain does not appear to square with this objective: Malaysia needs talent but talent seems to be leaving,” the World Bank said in its report on Malaysia. Let’s look at some of the figures as a gauge of the seriousness of the problem. The worldwide Malaysian diaspora is conservatively estimated at one million in 2010, quadrupling over the last three decades.
Singapore alone accounts for 57% of this with the rest dispersed mainly through Australia, Brunei, Britain and the United States. Ethnic Chinese account for nearly 90% of the diaspora in Singapore and are similarly over-represented in other developed countries. And here’s one frightening statistic: “One out of 10 Malaysians with a tertiary degree migrated in 2000 to an OECD (the club of rich countries, but which does not include Singapore) country – this is twice the world average and including Singapore would make this two out of 10.
”In other words, it is very likely that 20% of our best graduates end up in other countries. The reasons why they leave are also instructive: 66% cited career prospects, 60% social injustice and 54% compensation.
The situation is serious and as Malaysia is wont to do under such circumstances, it is resorting to ad hoc measures such as tax rebates on those returning and a corporation to attract talent into the country.
These will only chip away at the massive outcrops of declining educational standards, a badly implemented social restructuring policy, a poor system of rewards and the unwillingness to move away from low labour costs to high value-added manufacturing and services amongst others. The changes that are needed are deeply structural. First, everything possible has to be put into raising educational standards to improve the quality of those entering the workforce. South Korea had one third Malaysia’s per capita income in 1970 but now it is three times Malaysia’s. Such change would not have been possible without a super educational system at every level.
Developing talent at every level simply has to start with education and we have to put the best talents, facilities and other resources into this. Right now only the most dedicated or those who don’t have other choices go into teaching because it is neither rewarding nor respected as a profession.
Next we need social re-engineering to gear towards giving equal opportunities for advancement instead of a premature equalisation of outcomes whether in terms of wealth ownership or employment creation.
Otherwise the ultimate result might be plain mediocrity and creating a small class of privileged wealthy who have done little or nothing to deserve their wealth. Otherwise too, the talented who get little or nothing face despair and look elsewhere for their rewards.
Then we need too the unfettered opportunities, entrepreneurship and incentive for talent to flourish and to be adequately rewarded. We can’t continue to base our competitiveness on low wages and costs. In this respect, a weak currency and its attendant poor purchasing power is a sure way to chase talent out of the country.
That’s how we can retain talent and attract it too, realising that we must be open and free to import the best the world has to offer in terms of people, goods and services at the best prices. For these things to happen and be sustained what we need is honest policy and implementation untainted by corruption so that the most can be done with the resources at our disposal instead of frittering these away through all sorts of leakages in the system. It is no accident that the least corrupt countries are often the most developed and have the highest income.
If there is a lesson from the World Bank report, it is that we must return to the basics and work ourselves up from there. There is no shortcut, but once critical mass is reached progress grows in leaps and bounds.
Managing editor P Gunasegaram believes that an uncompromising stand towards excellent and quality education bereft of political and other pressures will do more towards a high income Malaysia than almost anything else.
Related Stories:
How can Malaysia stem the tide of talent migration?
The big picture on skilled labour market
Can Malaysia reform fast enough to meet challenges?
Talent Corp CEO: Need to change business model
The ‘vicious cycle’ of brain drain
PM: Innovate to compete
By LESTER KONG lester@thestar.com.my
PUTRAJAYA: The country's economic competitiveness will continue to be threatened if Malaysia relies on cheap foreign labour and is reluctant to innovate, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
He said the country's labour productivity also needed a large jump for local small and medium enterprises to compete well in the increasingly globalised and liberalised markets.
Najib said Malaysia's labour productivity was valued at RM15,000 per employee per year compared to RM103,000 for each American employee.
“According to this benchmark and compared to other countries, we are still very low.
“We must change in the next few years to raise productivity by 100%,” he said after chairing the 11th National Small and Medium Enterprise Development Council (SMEDC) meeting here yesterday.
Let’s talk business: Najib with International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed (third from right) and Bank Negara Governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz (right) at a press conference after chairing the SMEDC meeting in Putrajaya Friday.
Najib, who is also the Finance Minister, said lack of funding was the least of the SMEs' weaknesses as RM6bil had been allocated for SME development this year through various ministries and agencies.
He said the key weaknesses are weak managerial and entrepreneurial skills, reluctance to innovate and use technology and reliance on human-intensive labour to generate output.
“We find that many problems do not stem from funding but rather from the need to boost (SMEs') capacity,” he said.
Regarding a World Bank report on Thursday, Najib admitted that businesses were hampered by the slew of licences and permits required to start and conduct business and that this could encourage “elements of corruption”.
“The council (SMEDC) has decided that more radical steps are needed to relax permit requirements as a whole. This is related to our competitive policy to make it easier for companies to enter a market,” he said.
“A green lane policy has been established where the Govern-ment will give opportunities through contracts to use their products or services.
“We are looking at what other help we can give to enable these companies to enter the global market,” Najib said.
On foreign direct investments, Najib said FDIs into Malaysia had increased four-fold since 2009, rising from US$1.4bil (RM4.2bil) in 2009 to US$9bil (RM27bil) last year.
“I am confident that we will be able to ensure a very healthy growth in FDIs. But don't forget, it's not only about FDI, it's also about domestic investment as 73% of our development plans involves these,” he said.
Najib admitted that brain drain remained a major obstacle to Malaysia's plans to achieve a high-income developed status by 2020.
“We have identified (brain drain) as one of the problems that we need to find solutions to. That's why we set up Talent Corp.
“We will try to overcome (brain drain) through Talent Corp and other policy measures,” he said.
“It (brain drain) is not something that is happening now. It is a problem that has been happening for some time.”
He said the ringgit's gain over the US dollar will not affect Malaysia's exports.
“Local companies should use our stronger ringgit to strengthen processes in their companies, such as buying equipment and ensuring their supply chains are more efficient,” he said.
Reversing the brain drain
By P. GUNASEGARAM
Unless Malaysia succeeds in developing, retaining and attracting talent, its cherished dream of attaining high income by 2020 may be dashed to bits.PROBABLY for the first time ever we have had substantial facts and figures on Malaysia’s brain drain – and it has taken the World Bank to come out with this (see our cover story this issue).
The World Bank simply defines brain drain as the migration of talent across borders. It is instructive what it says.
“For Malaysia to stand (sic) success in its journey to high income, it will need to develop, attract and retain talent. Brain drain does not appear to square with this objective: Malaysia needs talent but talent seems to be leaving,” the World Bank said in its report on Malaysia. Let’s look at some of the figures as a gauge of the seriousness of the problem. The worldwide Malaysian diaspora is conservatively estimated at one million in 2010, quadrupling over the last three decades.
Singapore alone accounts for 57% of this with the rest dispersed mainly through Australia, Brunei, Britain and the United States. Ethnic Chinese account for nearly 90% of the diaspora in Singapore and are similarly over-represented in other developed countries. And here’s one frightening statistic: “One out of 10 Malaysians with a tertiary degree migrated in 2000 to an OECD (the club of rich countries, but which does not include Singapore) country – this is twice the world average and including Singapore would make this two out of 10.
”In other words, it is very likely that 20% of our best graduates end up in other countries. The reasons why they leave are also instructive: 66% cited career prospects, 60% social injustice and 54% compensation.
These will only chip away at the massive outcrops of declining educational standards, a badly implemented social restructuring policy, a poor system of rewards and the unwillingness to move away from low labour costs to high value-added manufacturing and services amongst others. The changes that are needed are deeply structural. First, everything possible has to be put into raising educational standards to improve the quality of those entering the workforce. South Korea had one third Malaysia’s per capita income in 1970 but now it is three times Malaysia’s. Such change would not have been possible without a super educational system at every level.
Developing talent at every level simply has to start with education and we have to put the best talents, facilities and other resources into this. Right now only the most dedicated or those who don’t have other choices go into teaching because it is neither rewarding nor respected as a profession.
Next we need social re-engineering to gear towards giving equal opportunities for advancement instead of a premature equalisation of outcomes whether in terms of wealth ownership or employment creation.
Otherwise the ultimate result might be plain mediocrity and creating a small class of privileged wealthy who have done little or nothing to deserve their wealth. Otherwise too, the talented who get little or nothing face despair and look elsewhere for their rewards.
Then we need too the unfettered opportunities, entrepreneurship and incentive for talent to flourish and to be adequately rewarded. We can’t continue to base our competitiveness on low wages and costs. In this respect, a weak currency and its attendant poor purchasing power is a sure way to chase talent out of the country.
That’s how we can retain talent and attract it too, realising that we must be open and free to import the best the world has to offer in terms of people, goods and services at the best prices. For these things to happen and be sustained what we need is honest policy and implementation untainted by corruption so that the most can be done with the resources at our disposal instead of frittering these away through all sorts of leakages in the system. It is no accident that the least corrupt countries are often the most developed and have the highest income.
If there is a lesson from the World Bank report, it is that we must return to the basics and work ourselves up from there. There is no shortcut, but once critical mass is reached progress grows in leaps and bounds.
Managing editor P Gunasegaram believes that an uncompromising stand towards excellent and quality education bereft of political and other pressures will do more towards a high income Malaysia than almost anything else.
Related Stories:
How can Malaysia stem the tide of talent migration?
The big picture on skilled labour market
Can Malaysia reform fast enough to meet challenges?
Talent Corp CEO: Need to change business model
The ‘vicious cycle’ of brain drain
PM: Innovate to compete
By LESTER KONG lester@thestar.com.my
PUTRAJAYA: The country's economic competitiveness will continue to be threatened if Malaysia relies on cheap foreign labour and is reluctant to innovate, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
He said the country's labour productivity also needed a large jump for local small and medium enterprises to compete well in the increasingly globalised and liberalised markets.
Najib said Malaysia's labour productivity was valued at RM15,000 per employee per year compared to RM103,000 for each American employee.
“According to this benchmark and compared to other countries, we are still very low.
“We must change in the next few years to raise productivity by 100%,” he said after chairing the 11th National Small and Medium Enterprise Development Council (SMEDC) meeting here yesterday.
Let’s talk business: Najib with International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed (third from right) and Bank Negara Governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz (right) at a press conference after chairing the SMEDC meeting in Putrajaya Friday.He said the key weaknesses are weak managerial and entrepreneurial skills, reluctance to innovate and use technology and reliance on human-intensive labour to generate output.
“We find that many problems do not stem from funding but rather from the need to boost (SMEs') capacity,” he said.
Regarding a World Bank report on Thursday, Najib admitted that businesses were hampered by the slew of licences and permits required to start and conduct business and that this could encourage “elements of corruption”.
“The council (SMEDC) has decided that more radical steps are needed to relax permit requirements as a whole. This is related to our competitive policy to make it easier for companies to enter a market,” he said.
“A green lane policy has been established where the Govern-ment will give opportunities through contracts to use their products or services.
“We are looking at what other help we can give to enable these companies to enter the global market,” Najib said.
On foreign direct investments, Najib said FDIs into Malaysia had increased four-fold since 2009, rising from US$1.4bil (RM4.2bil) in 2009 to US$9bil (RM27bil) last year.
“I am confident that we will be able to ensure a very healthy growth in FDIs. But don't forget, it's not only about FDI, it's also about domestic investment as 73% of our development plans involves these,” he said.
Najib admitted that brain drain remained a major obstacle to Malaysia's plans to achieve a high-income developed status by 2020.
“We have identified (brain drain) as one of the problems that we need to find solutions to. That's why we set up Talent Corp.
“We will try to overcome (brain drain) through Talent Corp and other policy measures,” he said.
“It (brain drain) is not something that is happening now. It is a problem that has been happening for some time.”
He said the ringgit's gain over the US dollar will not affect Malaysia's exports.
“Local companies should use our stronger ringgit to strengthen processes in their companies, such as buying equipment and ensuring their supply chains are more efficient,” he said.
Talent management is the key to success as talents help others to soar.
ReplyDeleteMalaysia is now lacking behind Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, etc who were behind us before.
This is due to racist politics and policies like NEP favoring the particular race who could not create and innovate to compete.
Bear in mind, talents are well sought after by all advanced countries as it is race and nation blind.
If Malaysia cannot take care and manage own talents, others would!
No talents would return to work for mediocre no matter how good the incentives offer to them.