Western Balkans losing billions due to BRAINDRAIN

The Western Balkans region loses billions of euros every year due to youth migration, according to a research conducted by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Institute for Development and Innovation.

The study estimates that the loss in the field of education due to young people departing the region is between EUR 840 million and 2.46 billion a year, the EU observer reports.

The Western Balkans region is also losing approximately 3.08 billion of GDP growth due to youth migration, which is a total of approximately EUR 5.5 billion a year.

The study estimates that the education of an individual, including primary and secondary school and faculty, costs EUR 25,000.

Emil Atanasovski, director of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) for the Western Balkans, says that a highly qualified force benefits from the global economy because countries that are destinations for young people compete in offering them better conditions for staying in the country, in order to attract highly qualified people.

WFD was founded in 1992 and it is funded by the UK government.

Atanasovski says that unlike some eastern countries where migrations began when these countries joined the European Union, migration from the Western Balkans is a trend that has lasted for more than half a century.

Some of the reasons for the emigration were the break-up of Yugoslavia, the wars of the 1990s and the economic consequences that these events brought.

The structure of migrants has changed, so now young people go abroad where they want to study or they complete their studies in the Balkans and look for a future abroad.

Izvor: Beta

Foto: Pixabay