Wednesday 25 June 2008

A new immigrant wave?




According to a Manpower research Greek employees seem to be overwilling to migrate abroad or to a different town if they can find better work conditions (better job, salary, boss etc). Those who replied they would immediately live for work reasons made up 87.7% (that percentage world wide is 78%).
This research was conducted in April 2008 with 31,574 participants from 38 different countries (1079 Greeks questioned). The UK, the US and Italy were aspiring Greeks immigrants top work destinations. 30.3% were willing to migrate anywhere in the world. Better salary and better career prospects where the key motives.
Greece is a country that had a huge immigrant wave following the poverty of WWII and the civil war. Greece's economy is far better than it was back then. With flunctuations but still it is quite good and at least half of Greeks enjoy a relatively good quality of life. Unfortunately Greece has never managed to keep its talent within borders. A new brain drain is about to take place and unfortunately nothing is done to prevent it. On the contrary the continuously increasing cost of living, lack of decent jobs, ridiculous delays in dealing with state business, chaotic country management (if it can be called management) and painful lack of meritocracy will lead talent abroad. This is the surest way to keep Greece a developing country and never fully develop it.

The ones that do stay, do so out of purely emotional reasons.
The more I think about this, the lower I think of the 300; top of the list make the three smiling ahambaroi* in the pictures (and the majority of their predecessors)


* 'ahambaros' is a Cypriot slang word meaning someone who has completely lost the plot - den pairnoun hambari.

2 comments:

George Georgitsis said...

I liked the ahambari connection. Wonderful

Anonymous said...

Or the three Stooges

Pugs are the superior creatures in any planet

Don't you wish you were hot like Frankie (the Pug)???