Rants and Articles.
Brain Drain
Brain Drain, an almost unheard-of phenomenon in the United States, is a harsh reality for most countries with emerging or subpar economies. The lack of opportunities in Research and Technology fields is alarming.
To me, brain drain used to be just another political buzzword. You read about it in the newspaper, reflect on it and go on to the next subject. Lately, though, it’s become an all-too present reality. Way too many of my high school and College friends have left México for greener pastures and better opportunities. Two are working for Microsoft in Seattle (Or maybe Japan). One is finishing his doctoral thesis in Stanford. Three are in Canada, one working for Bioware, the other two studying masters in Advanced Statistics and Computer Graphics. These are the ones I think of off the top of my head. The ones I was closest with. There are many more, in England, Germany, Switzerland and hell, even in India. The government calls this “the loss of valuable human resources”. To me it’s about losing my friends.
One could rant endlessly about patriotism, loyalty and abstract lines of thought that lead nowhere, but in the end, what are you going to do if you want to design chips, not just oversee their production? if you want to write videogames? if you want to get fair compensation for your work? We have a long way to go as a country, and it seems ludicrous to talk about this when México is #1 in the Child Poverty index according to UNICEF, but this is one area that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to fall behind on.
What about your country? What is the situation like over there? Share.
— sergio on December 15, 2003 
Comments
Oh, I may still join that particular herd. I wasn’t excluding myself from the pack. Not at the moment, though. But wouldn’t it be nice if México had the kind of opportunities you find elsewhere?
Are you refering to Alejandra (from high school) when you mention someone you know is in India?
Nah, she came back already, didn’t she? I was talking about Goyo. You know him, don’t you? Funny looking guy, dances a lot? He went over there to get a job programming, of all things. Right now he’s making about a third of what we make over here (and we’re pretty much screwed). I think it’s a spiritual search kind of deal.
Though I’ve been away for a bit, there was quite a lot of hullaballo about brain drain on the other side of the next border to the North of you.
In particular I can remember the nursing students at U.B.C. in Vancouver getting recruited by Texas and other Southern U.S. states…
In Australia we’re in the middle of a brain drain chain from New Zealand to London. I met a trainee lifeguard whose aim was to work a Sydney beach, and so many of my friends have gone to Great Britain to earn themselves a house deposit.
Luckily now the Aus currency is extremely strong and people no longer head to London chasing dollars so much.
I continue to lose my hornbag friends though, everybody knows London is where all the horny backpackers from around the world go to get their gear off.
*sigh*
Only gay guys and Metrosexuals in Sydney, ‘m afraid.
Seems England is to the EU what the US is to America.
Sooo… horny backpackers, huh? I shall delve deeper into this London thing…
Yeah… all of a sudden, I have the urge to do some international travelling…
i dunno man. brain drain is one thing, but i think it goes beyond purely intellectual interest. in the states we import medical workers from 3rd world countries. it started with doctors from india, but its expanded beyond that now. i heard a piece on the radio yesterday about a lady who was a doctor in a latin american country (can’t remember which) that got retrained as a nurse so she could work in the states where we have a SEVERE nursing shortage. that’s gotta be about the money and standard of living. would u leave a job as a doctor to become a nurse for the intellectual challenge? (not bangning on nurses mind u…)
one of my roomates in college was from los mochis. he interviewed with GE for a job as a field service engineer installing gas turbines. once they found out he was a mexican national, they offered him a job at the “mexican rate” which was about $10k a year instead of the $50k that he would have earned if he had had a US passport. bullshit…
but i go on… nice comic. hope to see more =)
My country, The Philippines, has been experiencing brain drain ever since I was in grade school. We have lost and are still losing a lot of our intelligent people. But nobody can scorn them for being unpatriotic. All they wanted was to have a job that pays well (which you cannot easily get in here) and be able to support their families.
Well, of course there’s also the motivation of money and the lack of decent employment. The standard thing to do about it in many parts of México is to go over to the US, crossing the border ilegally and get an underpaid, exploitative job (see the “Working the factory” story for more on this). Different faces of the same underlying problem I guess.
On the same note, it’s kind of funny when you find out your former classmates who have an Engineering degree are waiting tables in London and making twice as much as you make in a Transnational IT company. Funny like kidney stones are funny.
Xenia: I know how that works. When governments and companies don’t provide the opportunities there’s not much else you can do. Currently, starting a small business in México is an exercise in futility. If you can forego frivolous luxuries, like eating and sleeping, then you may do ok. Fox is promoting the “changarros” (really small businesses) as a solution to the problem. Which sounds idiotic. Bah.
You have a very nice blog! I’ll make sure to read up on it later.
Hmmm.. my local paper had an article about that recently. While, obvious, lacking the words “illegal” and “exploitative,” it talked about how many Mexicans were coming to Minnesota (where I live, central and way north in the US) to work either in factories in smaller towns or non-factory jobs in the cities, staying about 10 years to save up some money, and then moving away after that. I forget what all the reasons where why they moved away but one was the winters.
Here in Canada sounds like much the same as elsewhere. ITAC tells us that some 2/3rds of all new projects have been cancelled, most of the ads in the papers are either suicide missions or VBasic, and of my colleages, I only know one or two who are underemployed, most are either chronically unemployed or left the IT industry for something more lucrative.
Myself, I closed the doors on a 23 year old consulting business and work as a sysadmin for a US-based startup. In two years the only offers I received were for pro-bono work “for shares” without even the promise of a little cash flow. Some were good ideas, but most were junk aimed only at parting VCs of their money. It’s dismal.
I’d feel a lot better if I looked about and saw IT excellence everywhere, but I don’t. Everywhere things are broken, ill-conceived and not working and execs running around wondering why.
There’s some small bits of good work at the chip level or in embedded stuff, or in bogus post 9/11 security farces, but beyond that, for innovation and considering all the things we could be doing, it’s as Isenberg said, “If we could put just half of the unemployed engineers back to work, the things we could do!”
“in bogus post 9/11 security farces”
That is very interesting. I hadn’t given it any thought, but now that you mention it, this whole “terror alert” environment must have by now created a whole new industry. Too bad the crappy state of the economy doesn’t help.
But anyway… is it that bad? I was kind of looking at Canada for job alternatives in case the economy over here takes a nosedive (more than it has). In that case… damn.
brain drain.. looks like inequality to me.. developing countries hring professionals of foreign countries.. looks unethical..
Well, there are other reasons as to why people leave Mexico too. I left because I would never be taken seriously as a researcher there.
I despised being asked “oh, you are studying that stuff called biology?” by old friends in my small city.
Sure I could have gone to Guadalajara or Mexico City. I had the chance. But being a woman…come on, we all know what that environment can be like. I probably would have gone crazy by now…Saludos desde Philly!
Brain Drain makes the Philippines the world’s no. 1 producer of nurses, domestic helpers and seamen. Just imagine the havoc that would arise if they would go on aworld wide strike!!!! Brain Drain makes me sick…
My mom is a Head Nurse in San Francisco, my father is a seaman, my two brothers are computer programmers; the elder is in Seoul amnd the other is in Singapore. Right Now, Im processing my papers to work as abanker in Bermuda. I’m a Filipino, would that make us world class? By the way my, fiancee works as a UN Volunteer in Uganda.
Let’s get serious…Would you actually call it brain drain? It seems more of a brain gain for me. It may look like so many people go abroad for employment but could you blame them…should they stay in the Philippines, they would only become a part of the pool of unemployed individuals in this country…i guess its just fair enough that they look for job somewhere else…
brain is still the saving grace of the country… it aids our economy… we wont be running out of nurses anyway… and its a matter of choice. we dont force them to work abroad.. they just feel that their luck is there…
A todos los mexicanos en el extranjero…
Me siento como un jugador del San Lorenzo de Almagro, viendo cómo contratan a sus compañeros en Europa. Uno qué más quisiera que jugáramos juntos y que hiciéramos de nuestro club el mejor del mundo, pero entiendo sus razones.
Y bueno, ya vienen nuevas promesas para suplirlos.
i think we should also think for the welfare of our country.not only for ourselves. i myself i won’t leave my country just to work outside and to have big salaries
Good to read yopur comments, actually I can see the fact that as a professional studying in USA and very soon moving to Germany. There are really few reasons to go bad to Mexico, and It is just because the infrastructure to do my work is not present and the people in the goverment will never care about science and innovation, as sas as it can sound thats the reality of our Mexico at the moment, hopefully one day things will be different.
Bests regards to everybody
Charly
College Station, TX
men, wait till u know bout the philippine brain drain situation.
almost all of the people I know are taking up Nursing courses in order to work abroad!
and now I find my self working on a reaserch paper about the Brain drain!
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I agree, it’s terrible that these countries are stealing our friends away. Its funny, at one point, I believe you were interested in joining this particular herd, however, it seems that comics and LAN parties are in your way now.