Italy: brains returning home?

According to an article published last January 8th by the New York Times, “many” Italian young workers are on the verge of going back home. Some others might have already done so, due to the disruption of their jobs abroad as well as to the possibility to hold meetings and conferences via meeting platforms, such as Zoom.

Italy, NYT reports, “along with Romania and Poland, is among the European countries that send the most workers abroad […]”. The proportion of Italians living abroad who have a university degree is higher than that of Italy’s general population.

Taking into account the money the country spends on their education, Italy’s brain drain costs the country an estimated 14 billion euro (about $17 billion) every year. Confindustria, Italy’s biggest business association, has estimated this sum.

In a regime of open borders such as that granted by the Schengen agreement in the EU over the last decades, it is no mystery that many Italian graduates preferred to emigrate. This, mainly in order to bank the results of their studies, as often not even a good degree ensures a workplace in their hometown.

On the other end, platforms such as Zoom, Teams, or Meet fostered the possibility for Italian graduates to work from home. Exactly while their foreign offices were shut down due to the pandemic.

red (in Italian) the latest news by  Sole- 24 Ore.