Europe's Lost Talent

Europe is second choice in the global competition for talent despite switching its universities to English internationalizing its economy pouring tens of billions into research programs it's struggling to retain Global Talent especially on the upper end of the educational ladder while it's the second destination for international students just behind the us if we look at the numbers for PhD students 79% of foreigners doing a doctorate in the US are likely to stay there while that number drops to only a third for the Netherlands or 39% for Lux ber all the while a steady stream of many of Europe's own best and brightest students and workers are living for the United States where they contribute disproportionately to research Innovation and getting projects off the ground and all of this is happening at a time when European countries are being left in the Dust by their American and Asian competitors in terms of patent applications for key Innovations like AI the share of top companies and economic growth and at the back of all of this is one rare global commodity brains Europe's brain shortage threatens not only its economic success but its ambition to be a front runner not just in adoption but the development of society altering technology not least the green transition it's the story of how Europe is losing its economic Edge and outsources its Innovation but also of how it might regain it and fi its lackluster economic performance by winning the global war for talent so can Europe actually turn its brain drain into a brain gain if the United States had a superpower it would be its ability to attract Talent if you're young educated and ambitious and not afraid of longer hours and shorter holidays the US offers seemingly boundless opportunity it has world-class universities the Deep Pockets of its capitalists and much higher salaries for skilled professions like software developers it has the largest pool of foreign students of any country in the world and through a selective Visa procedure and the promise of opportunity it's able to keep the best of them State Side to power the American economy immigrants in the US have an outsized contribution to the economy 22% of the patents submitted in the US were done by migrants 44% of the US's Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or their children and immigrants made up nearly a quarter of all stem so science technology engineering math workers in the US in sharp contrast Europe has not really been a prime destination for foreign brains or up until recently for immigration in general the contribution of immigrants to patents is 3% to the US is 22% but as its population is aging and economy is slowing down Europe has been in search of of New Brains to keep its economy running and when it comes to tracting New Brains it faces tough competition especially when compared to English speaking countries like the US Canada Australia in the case of Chinese students or in the case of Indian students even the Middle East for many foreigners it's often easier to go to the US while the EU still has a large economy a decade and a half of stagnation and the continued language barriers despite internationalization means that there are generally more opportunities for foreigners in the US but before we move on to how big Europe's brain drain actually is first a word from this video sponsor speakly one thing that I never forget is how important my language skills are especially when it comes to diving into different government sources and statistical databases to find just what I need I was curious about the science behind learning new languages and it turns out vocabulary is the key according to speak Le's own research spanning thousands of conversations and six years of studying you need to know the 4,000 most common words to speak a language fluently in fact it may be lower at around 2500 with each new word offering diminishing returns and that is exactly what the speakly method is designed 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of these visas are for tourism others are for family reunification but the ones that we're actually interested in are those that bring in brains to the country so the ones that are granted on academic and professional merits there are generally speaking three steps to move to the US for professional reasons and as it turns out Europeans are over represented in each of these steps a significant number of Europeans enter as students trainees or interns in the form of the J1 and F1 visas which are relatively accessible Europeans made up 43 and 15% of those if they hope to extend their even further than their best hope is to apply for the elite professional visas that is those that bring skilled workers into the United States and promise them permanent residency these are the H1B o01 E2 and L1 visas the share of Europeans is about 30% for the E2 nl1 and in the case of the 01 that skyrockets still whooping 60% the last category the H1B which grants visas to a lottery system for some reason has lost popularity over the past two decades due to a massive influx of Tech workers who now make up 75% of all visas granted but if we add all those professional visas there is a flow that has remained more or less constant over the past two decades with about 60,000 Europeans each year receiving an elite professional visa to go work in the US and three of those special professional visas Grant Green cards after 5 years while other Visa holders could later opt to go through the more selective eb1 or eb2 visas and when we look at studies on those Europeans that made the move they are quite special in indeed Europeans in the United States were more entrepreneurial being more likely to start a business more likely to have completed tertiary education and likely filled key professions where they earn higher salaries than the average American it also means that these are some of the most entrepreneurial people in Europe who are simply moving and staying away this should come as no surprise it's likely both one of the motivations for leaving and why they were selected to go there in the first place and they form a kind of European Elite abroad and even if this flow seems quite small this number 60,000 is a pretty big deal according to the study by Italian economist Marta Plato despite accounting for a small share of the migrant population Europeans have been some of the most productive immigrants in the US out producing other nationalities in terms of patents where they accounted for 62% of all migrant patents even for those that stay away only temporarily there could be quite a cost for their country of origin who misses out on productive young people to grow their economy in the case of Academia younger workers just out of University tend to heat their creative Peaks when young which happens in the US while those that remain in Europe can no longer learn from their immigrated talented colleagues but there are a series of KnockOn effects which muddle the waters a little bit as we've seen Europeans tend to be more productive as in produce more patents after moving to the US but the Innovations they help generate eventually duse back to Europe leading to growth there as well and while some of the brains are lost the links they have with their colleagues back home and those that come back could make the pill less B to swallow in fact European governments are actively pushing for this in the hope that they will one day return to their country of origin this is a brasure pushing young Dutch people to go to the US from the Dutch government but all of this begs one major question why are these top tier talented Europeans moving away while some of it points to the English Language and Cultural proximity to the US the Scandinavians British and Irish are some of the likeliest to go to the US on the professional visas I talked about earlier but another driving Factor seems to be opportunity or lack thereof in their country of origin so if we break down the individual country data on visas we see that Italy Spain Greece France and Ireland saw a jump in the amount of what I've come to know as brain drain visas after the respective governments imposed austerity following the 2008 financial crisis research budgets were durably slashed companies stopped investing and funding for new Ventures dried up and those looking for opportunity started going elsewhere this very same lack of funding is one of the major reasons European startups and companies have left Europe for the US in fact if we talk the brain Trin visas I talked about earlier to economic growth we can see that low growth seems to lead to more brain drain to the US a trend that affects southern Europe more specifically now this doesn't mean that other countries don't experience a brain drain as well there's a well-documented internal EU brain drain with Central and Eastern Europeans moving West rather than to the US or the flow from the south to the north of Europe which has left those areas with lower Innovation and productivity and a higher bill for education of the workers that left okay so Europeans are going to the United States they're smart educated and the flow was pretty steady but could Europe turn this brain drain into a brain gain and in just case returning Tech workers have contributed to their own country's excellence and helped to grow bengalore the Indian citicon Valley likewise Western educated Chinese Engineers returned and contributed in setting up groundbreaking Industries like solar or the EV industry and in a similar development some of Europe's latest successes in the news recently have been the result of Europeans coming back mistr frenchise startup was started by former employees of Google and meta and Jonas andr the founder of Germany's first AI company Alpha Alf worked for 3 years for Apple in Silicon Valley and it actually seems as if it's possible to reverse this trend despite the elite visas and the corresponding immigration privileges that they continue to enjoy fewer Europeans are choosing to stay in the US in the long term which we can see when we look at the decline in number of green cards issued to Europeans since 2016 and Europeans from some countries are actually leaving the US aren which is one of the greatest Reigns of brain drains to the US actually has seen the number of permanent Irish residents in the US fall from about 120,000 in 2012 to about 30,000 today on top of which there were also 100,000 fewer Germans and about 90,000 fewer Italians so what is Europe doing to reverse its brain drain and attract more International talents well European countries have looked to make themselves more attractive for skilled workers and the companies that employ them in other words they have sought to create more opportunity in the process they've adopted many US practices like stock-based compensation packages for Tech workers created startup incubators lower corporate taxes push through industrial subsidies to attract companies and incentivize foreigners to come through tax reductions for example the Netherlands offers a 30% cut back on your taxes for foreigners which effectively allows it to match the American Tax Rate though it has recently limited the scope of this measure in recent years in fact if Europe hopes to L back its Elite expat workers it could look to expand those schemes to return e on top of foreigners even when it comes to funding new companies the trend of European firms moving has slowed down in recent years as more funding has become available this side of the Atlantic and of course Europe also has an advantage when it comes to non-financial metrics like quality of life cheaper Health Care More paid holidays and more liveable cities it's actually a factor that has been pushing Americans to Europe and could also explain the reason why fewer Europeans are deciding to stay in the US in the long run but at the heart of the brain drain remains a fundamental question can the more egalitarian approach of Europe compete with the brutal mocracy of the United States where top talent receives many more rewards leaving the rest with less in its Europe is choosing for quality of life but at the same time it's Outsourcing its Innovation letting other people take the lead at the cost of giving away its brains but what do you think can Europe find a Middle Road to tackle its brain drain or should it do nothing and let smart Europeans have their way to work in the United States and benefit later on from the trickle back of innovation let me know what you think in the comments down below

Channel: Into Europe

Views: 142,833

Keywords: Europe, European News, EU, EU News, European Union

Id: L0gSdk-foJk

Length: 11min 49sec (709 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 18 2024