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SKILLED LABOR SEES POTENTIAL BACK HOME
BY JULIA ST. THOMAS
As Egypt witnesses the establishment of more companies, both domestic and international, the expansion of tax free zones and the construction of industrial communities such as Smart Village, new employment opportunities are emerging. Over the course of the past three decades, an absence of such opportunities saw many of Egypt’s best and brightest workers jump ship – this phenomenon, known as the brain drain, is a plague in most developing countries that lack the resources to keep their talent at home. While this has been true in Egypt, the tide seems to be turning. There are real prospects to re-capture the intellectual capital that has been lost and to keep it home; to transform what was once the brain drain, into a brain gain.
Leaking talent
Prior to 1970, Egyptian emigration was negligible. The introduction of Sadat’s “Infitah,” or Open Door Policy, in 1974 ushered in a new era of freedom of mobility. In a little over two decades, the number of Egyptians working and living abroad nearly quadrupled, from 655,000 in 1975 to over 2.7 million by 2000. Today, approximately 4 percent of the total population of Egypt is living abroad. While a large portion of this figure includes Egyptians moving to the Gulf with the intention of returning, it also represents thousands of Egyptians leaving each year to settle permanently in Europe and North America. These emigrants – amongst them doctors, engineers, scientists and technology specialists – have walked out the open door in the hopes of finding a better future.
According to a 2006 study conducted by the Ministry of Manpower & Migration in cooperation with Italia Cooperation and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the primary factors behind migration from Egypt are overwhelmingly economic: low wages compared to Europe, inadequate living conditions and a lack of job opportunities, especially among fresh graduates. While not the sole cause, the “geography of opportunity” has been a driving force behind the intellectual exodus. For Sharif Omar, chief technology officer at Arab Finance, a subsidiary of LINKdotNET, it largely informed his decision to move to Canada following graduation from the American University in Cairo in 1994. “It’s not that I wanted to leave Egypt,” Omar asserts, “but definitely there were better opportunities [abroad]. Most of my friends after grad[uation] moved either to the States or to Europe either to study or work. Of my close friends, I’d say 90 percent left.”
Though the flight of human capital from Egypt has been cited as a hindrance to the country’s development, it has also been perceived as a means of easing the pressure of an ever-expanding population on a comparatively small domestic job market, and of channeling important financial resources back home. The Integrated Migration Information System (IMIS) project of the ministry, the Italian government and the IOM, launched in June 2001, manifests this logic. Luigi Carta, IMIS Plus project manager at the IOM, explains that the program’s objective is to channel human resources from Egypt to Europe.
Essentially, IMIS provides a technical matchmaking service for Egyptian labor and Italian employers. The program, however, tends to cater to lower-skilled labor such as welders, cooks and truck drivers. Carta says that engaging highly skilled Egyptians abroad will be a future initiative for IMIS. “We can eventually try to do a census of highly skilled Egyptians abroad... and see if they are willing to [provide] return [as in] they stay abroad but they contribute some things [such as] training. This is very useful because someone who wishes to remain abroad never forgets his country and there are things that he can do for his country.”
Homeward bound
Gradually, both the public and private sectors are either acknowledging or tapping into the greater contributions that skilled Egyptians abroad can make to reinvigorate the domestic economy beyond remittances.
According to Walid Abdel-Wadood, Cairo director of UK-based executive recruitment agency Antal International, over the past three to five years opportunities in Egypt for highly skilled candidates in manufacturing, financial services and IT have been expanding. Abdel-Wadood notes that over 2,000 companies, multinational and Egyptian, have scheduled to set up businesses in Egypt over 2008 and 2009. “These are the businesses that my office is personally targeting,” states Abdel-Wadood. “Now is a good time for us... We’re going in the right direction and we have had success with moving Egyptians into Egypt.”
Central to Antal International’s mandate in Egypt is to entice skilled Egyptians who have either left their homeland, or were born abroad, to move to Egypt. “It’s really my number one priority to attract those people... who are unique, who have international or multinational experience, and would love to have a good chance to come back to their country.” From the perspective of Abdel-Wadood’s corporate clientele, Egyptians that have been abroad have added value; they bring with them the benefits of exposure to global processes and procedures, as well as new ways of doing business.
While overseas experience can make candidates more attractive to employers, Abdel-Wadood also finds many skilled Egyptians foregoing flight to capitalize on expanding opportunities at home. “Five years ago, I would have told you that, yes, everybody wants to leave the country,” states Abdel-Wadood. “But now, no – there is a balance. We don’t have to spend as much time and money looking outside; we have the talent here in Egypt.”
Somaya El-Sherbini, human resources manager at Microsoft, echoes this sentiment. “Something interesting I’ve started to notice is that people are not so keen to leave Egypt. Maybe over the last four years, people have begun embracing [the idea] that there’s opportunity here... I can have a career, I can be successful – and not only that but I can also make good money.” El-Sherbini also notes that “a lot of people that have gone and worked for Microsoft in the US want to come back. I think that people are realizing that the market is becoming much more mature... that we’re becoming more disciplined. [I] can’t say that we’re there yet, but we’re on the right track.”
Part of the reason that Egyptians are increasingly able to make good money at home stems from the government’s initiatives to make the market more attractive to foreign investment and more accommodating to local small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Omar suggests that it is the cabinet of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif that has ushered in the right kind of change to stimulate growth and development, in the IT sector in particular. “The prime minister used to be the minister of [communications and information technology] so he’s aware of what needs to be done to help the industry,” says Omar. “There is now participation in trade shows [such as] Gitex in Dubai, and there’s sponsorship from the government to participate in these events, and there’s also the e-government initiative.” The latter is a program designed to increase efficiency and coordination in the public sector. Omar also cites the establishment of Smart Village as a significant incentive for high-tech businesses and related industries to set up shop in Egypt.
According to a statement issued in August 2004 by Nazif introducing the Ministry of Finance’s Framework and Action Plan for Enhancing the Competitiveness of Small and Medium Enterprises, “creating job opportunities through stimulating the role of the private sector in economic activity, setting market forces in motion and promoting investment are amongst the priorities of the Egyptian government’s economic policy.” To that end, greater funding opportunities and tax incentives have helped young businesses to launch and to grow. “Now, there are a lot more options for funding than just selling the house and the car,” Omar affirms.
Beyond the pay check
Fostering the conditions for innovation and high-tech entrepreneurship can undoubtedly attract highly skilled workers – both from within a country and from outside – but, in the case of Egypt, where unemployment is officially about 9 percent, there must be more than job potential that is bringing people home.
For many, personal reasons provide the real impetus for return. Omar’s decision to come back from Canada in 2002 was driven “mainly [by] family.” He agrees that Egypt has a long way to go before it can be considered a land of opportunity, though he does hold hope. “For sure the IT sector has expanded and the government has made it an area of focus... After a while, you just feel like you want to be at home.”
Abdel-Wadood affirms that it is not opportunity alone that makes him successful in combating the brain drain. “It used to be tough, really tough. If you talk about three years ago, it would have been near impossible to get the highly talented people, but now we sell the country. Egypt at the end of the day is a developing country, but it’s a place where a lot of people want to be because of the atmosphere, because of the culture... I mean we sell the country as a package. You have everything in Egypt, why don’t you come back here?”
Over the past three years, Abdel-Wadood has witnessed the packages offered in the Gulf become less appealing as the salaries in Egypt become more competitive. According to Abdel-Wadood, candidates are now “being offered more or less a similar salary... but the cost of living in Egypt is nothing compared to [for example] Dubai. Here it’s easy for a candidate to own his own apartment; he does not have to... rent a house and rent a car. To live there it’s a nightmare in terms of expenses. The cost of living is ever-increasing.” El-Sherbini agrees: “The Gulf isn’t the catch it used to be.”
For Angie Balata, a Canadian Egyptian, it is the cultural and social aspects that provide the greatest incentives to return and to stay. “There’s a new kind of opening, a social opening,” asserts Balata. “You have established cinema, a flourishing independent music scene, and greater access to foreign arts. All of these things change Egyptians. There’s an infitah [opening] of the mind. This is one of the major attractions to a lot of Egyptian foreign nationals. For me personally that’s a large selling point. I may make less money, but at the same time I’m gaining something that’s much more important than money – the social revolution.”
For Egyptian foreign nationals, there is the added dimension of identity that compels their return. An ideal vision of the homeland stirs in many a desire to contribute. The possession of marketable skills makes this possible. “I’m not saying that the West is kicking us out,” asserts Balata, “but on the individual level I am saying Egypt fills an identity gap that a lot of us have in the West. Here we are a commodity, but at the same time we feel part of this society; we look Egyptian, we speak Egyptian, and we’re not constantly asked ‘why is your English so good?’”
Certainly not all Egyptians feel the same way. While the job market is opening up for some, for others a shift in the geography of opportunity may take time and a concerted effort from the public and private sectors. According to Carta, “those working in IT now have access to excellent facilities and stable jobs and so they needn’t go abroad to fulfill their working needs.” For the 200,000 Egyptians on the IMIS database, the prospects aren’t as plentiful. While entrepreneurs and white-collar workers may have reason to return, the same cannot be said of low- and semi-skilled Egyptians. As of yet, IMIS does not have future plans for the return of these individuals, who will likely be endowed with expanded skill sets and new potential to contribute.
Still, there are signs of life. Many Egyptians, for family, for identity and for a sense of home, wish to return. Given the right conditions, it seems that from the brain drain of old, a brain gain can indeed be cultivated.
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