ASIA: Skilled workers from China and India in demand
Updated
Competition in the global market for highly skilled migrant labour is heating up. Industrialised countries are facing a demographic crisis as baby boomers near retirement, leaving a chronic shortage of skills and experience in the workforce.
And they're looking to Asia to fill the gaps, with graduates from China and India in huge demand.
Presenter: Joanna McCarthy
Speakers: Dr Salim Lakha, Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at Melbourne University; Glenn Withers, chief executive of Universities Australia and a public policy specialist at ANU; European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso
McCARTHY: It's a phenomenon economists have long been warning us about. But the recent news from the Unites States that the first baby boomer has just started collecting social security makes it a reality. Across the western world, policy makers are grappling with how to cope with a mass exodus of baby boomers from the workforce. And they're increasingly looking to skilled migrants to fill the gaps. Glenn Withers is the chief executive of Universities Australia and a public policy specialist at ANU.
WITHERS: There is growing competition, particularly as the Europeans and Japan recognise that they've got a big issue of support of all their population, and the slow growth of their workforces. What has happened though, is that it's very slow in their embrace of immigration as a solution to that, unlike countries like Australia and Canada and the United States where the problem is not aas great. But we've been much more willing traditionally to embrace migration, for our national development. The Europeans and Japan have a much more complicated cultural attitude.
McCARTHY: The European Union has just launched a new visa scheme to attract skilled migrants, particularly those from China and India. Known as the Blue Card, it's loosely modelled on the Unites States' green card system. Whether the scheme can get the approval of all 27 EU countries is doubtful, given Europe's uneasy attitudes to immigration. But EU chief Jose Manuel Barroso says Europe has to make itself competitive in the global labour market if it's going to stay viable.
BARROSO: We are attractive to many, but we are not good enough at attracting highly-skilled people, nor are we young or numerous enough, to keep the wheels of our societies and economies turning on our own.
McCARTHY: This warning that the wheels could fall off was also put forward this week by US accountants Ernst & Young. Their research in the States shows that baby boomer retirements could decimate the ranks of management at many corporations and intensify the skills shortage. Industry lobbyists are urging Washington to fast track green cards for skilled workers -- especially in the fields of engineering and information technology. And in those fields, the strongest demand is also for graduates from India and China. And contrary to reports that migration will create a "brain drain" in these countries, Glenn Withers says it's a "win-win" situation.
WITHERS: What I think has happened now is a change of attitude towards a recocognition that it's not a brain drain, but a brain circulation - both for the countries from which these people come and where they go. They see it as part of a movement and ciculation, whereby you integrate and interlink the economies and societies for mutual benefit. So that a Chinese engineer that comes to Australia will in turn perhaps, set up a business that perhaps links back to China, that helps Australian exports, that they will frequently move back and forwards for twin countries with knowledge transfer as a product as part of that process.
McCARTHY: But for how long will the United States, Australia and Europe be able to raid the skilled workforces of emerging economies like China and India? Dr Salim Lakha is a senior lecturer in development studies at Melbourne University, and a specialist on the Indian labour force. He says as the local economy booms, Indian workers are becoming more inclined to reap the rewards of staying at home.
DR SALIM: I don't that some of these Indian professionals in the future will be as attracted to go overseas as has been the case in the past - you know, with increasing economic liberalisation in India, with liberalisation of imports, the middle class people, like the I-T workers, enjoy a standard of living, which in some ways is comparable to what they might experience, let's say in Australia or Britain or in some other advance countries.
