Bulgaria battles to stop its brain drain

Kerin Hope

Dimitar, 26, has made up his mind to look for a job in western Europe when he finishes his masters degree in international relations at a Swiss university. He does not want to return to Bulgaria. “What I’d really like would be to make a career in the EU, either the European Parliament or the Commission,” he says, citing the fluency in English and German he acquired while studying at a Bulgarian foreign language high school in Plovdiv. “I want to have a real opportunity to develop my potential, earn a good salary and enjoy a European lifestyle.” Dimitar’s reasons for leaving echo the estimated 1m Bulgarians who chose to leave between 1990 — when passports for foreign travel became widely available following the demise of communism — and 2007, the year Bulgaria joined the EU.

This was an average of almost 60,000 people a year. Since 2007, EU rules on free movement of labour have made it much easier for Bulgarians to work in the other 27 countries, yet levels of emigration have fallen as the economy has grown. Official statistics on migration are scarce but several Sofia-based economists agreed that about 30,000 people still leave each year, mostly students pursuing higher degrees abroad and graduates in computer science, engineering and medicine. An estimated 10,000 people return annually, led by experienced IT professionals with skills that are sought after in the country’s flourishing technology sector, which contributes 3.6 per cent of GDP. While the pace of outward migration has since slowed, its impact continues to be felt. Bulgaria’s population has shrunk by 2m to 7.1m since 1990, according to a consensus of local experts. The country’s birth rate is below the EU average, while its death rate is the highest. Without a sustained baby boom and any large-scale return of its citizens working abroad, Bulgaria will have around 5.5m inhabitants by 2050, the economists predict. Dimitar Radev, the central bank governor, speaking in an interview with the Financial Times, singles out the demographic problem as “our main challenge in the mid to long term”. “The government is taking steps in the right direction, making education a clear priority in the 2018 budget. But these are very early steps,” Mr Radev says. “Hopefully the trend of young people coming back will develop in the future.”

Please use the sharing tools found via the email icon at the top of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here.
https://www.ft.com/content/51f1bd86-d6cc-11e7-ae3e-563c04c5339a

Krasimir Valchev, the education and science minister, believes the tide may already be turning: “The pace of emigration has declined over the past few years. We’re seeing emigration steady at lower levels now and more people are returning from abroad.” Vladislav, an urban planner who studied at University College London before coming back to join his family’s construction business, agrees. “Quite a lot of people are returning after about 10 years abroad when they’ve saved enough to buy a flat and pay something back to their parents” for helping finance their education, he says. “Bulgarians abroad are sobering up . . . After a while they realise that there’s huge competition for highly paid jobs in IT or finance so they might do better career-wise in the emerging market at home.” Bulgaria was not the only eastern European country to suffer a sharp fall in the birth rate in the early 1990s because of economic upheaval and a wave of outward migration. But a sharp decline in the quality of state healthcare and high poverty rates — 42 per cent of the population are at risk of poverty in old age, according to Eurostat — gives Bulgaria the second-lowest life expectancy in the EU after Lithuania. Mr Valchev underlines the importance of the IT sector both in retaining talented professionals and encouraging others to return. “IT has a high added value so we need to build capacity by training more well-qualified specialists. My view is that as the industry grows and Bulgaria’s purchasing power converges with the rest of the EU we’ll see a steady reduction in outward migration.” Over the past four years the education system has been overhauled to focus on vocational training in computer sciences and the development of partnerships with the private sector. Kalin Radev, founder of Software Group, a fintech company that specialises in microfinance, is confident that the IT industry will drive economic growth and make Bulgaria a more outward-looking society by attracting foreign professionals. His own senior management team includes experts from South Africa, Macedonia and Ireland.

https://www.ft.com