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Italy suffering brain drain as hundreds of thousands seek fortune abroad

Max Civili
Press TV, Rome

 

A latest report by the National Bureau of Statistics ISTAT has found that large swaths of mostly young and highly educated Italians have continued to move abroad in search of working opportunities.

Italy's young workers have been leaving for decades. However the report has highlighted that over 300,000 Italians aged 18 to 39 emigrated to neighbouring European countries and overseas between 2015 and 2019, up 33% compared to 2014. One in three of them were graduates.

Youth unemployment level in Italy stands at about forty per cent. Furthermore, three out of ten Italians between 18 and 24 years of age are not in employment, education or training, the third highest percentage among OECD countries.

A recent study by the European Commission has found that Italy, along with Romania and Poland, is among the European countries that send the most workers abroad. This brain drain costs the country an estimated 14 billion euro every year.

Successive Italian governments had long tried attracting back talented workers with tax breaks with no success.

However a counter-exodus of the brain drain seems to be underway since the start of the pandemic. Data from Italy's Foreign Ministry shows that in 2020, the number of young Italians returning home increased about 20 percent over the previous year.


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