DANGLING more perks and sweeteners to professional Malaysians working abroad to entice them to return home and contribute to the country’s advancement will not work, business leaders said.

They said there are other factors to consider, including offering these returning Malaysians a working environment that is as good as or better than what is available overseas.

They said apart from that, Malaysian professionals overseas would also be looking at the country’s political stability, the economic situation and educational standards, among others, before deciding to return.

Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) president Goh Tian Chuan said the government, through its agency Talent Corporation Malaysia (TalentCorp), had offered lucrative incentives a decade ago to bring back Malaysian professionals working overseas but it did not work.

He said the perks offered included 15% single-tax rate rebate within five years, incentives to buy a locally assembled car or import one duty-free car whose value is not more than RM150,000, relocation without taxes and permanent residency for foreign spouses and children.

“(But) only a few thousand responded,” Goh told The Malaysian Insight. “It was not very good.”

According to TalentCorp’s statistics, there are 1.86 million Malaysian professionals working abroad or 5.6% of the country’s population.

The data also showed that to date, the agency, a unit under the Human Resources Ministry, only managed to get about 5,000 to return.

Goh also pointed at the World Bank report in 2011, which stated that about one million Malaysians had emigrated in 2010, with one-third of them being highly skilled individuals, and over 57% chose to settle in Singapore.

He said for these skilled individuals and professionals to return home, they are looking at a work environment where they can continue what they are working on in their adopted country.

“Do we have the environment and set-up for, say, a returning research scientist?” he said.

Goh said these professionals expect a set-up at the level of an advanced country, rather than at the level of a developing country.

He said some of the Malaysian doctors working overseas have qualifications that Malaysia does not recognise.

“Will the government recognise those qualifications?”

‘Review policies’

Goh said the TalentCorp statistics amply indicated that the perks offered by the agency are not enough to make these Malaysians give up their more-than-lucrative overseas job and return to Malaysia.

The dissatisfaction of those who had accepted the offer and returned to work at home is not helping the TalentCorp drive either, he said.

“I personally know that some of those who had returned did not get what they had hoped for. What I want to say is that the incentives and environment designed to attract them back are only temporary,” he said.

“In the long run, what these returning experts really need is not incentives but the opportunity to continue achieving and finding fulfilment in their professional fields.

“It has been 13 years (since TalentCorp was formed) and the statistics continue to show that over a million Malaysians are emigrating overseas and taking their skills with them.

“We have reason to believe that this number has increased, and if we were to add technical people and labourers, the number is certainly higher.”

Goh said he agreed with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim that for a rapidly developing country like Malaysia, as it moves towards complete recovery from the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is of utmost importance to retain the talent to assist in various areas of national development.

He said reversing the brain drain will not be easy and there is much to be done.

He said for a start, Anwar could review the government’s policies on this matter.

One such policy, he pointed out, is the fixed salary.

“The fixed salary is one of the reasons for the brain drain, especially among the non-Bumiputera,” he said.

Goh also said there should be equal opportunities for education.

He said when parents have to send their children overseas to get their tertiary education after not being able to get into a local university, it was only natural that they would encourage their children to find work overseas.

The continued resistance of the government to recognise the Unified Examination Certificate is contributing to the brain drain, he said.

Goh said these Chinese independent school graduates go overseas to continue their studies and take their expertise they have learnt to countries that recognised their qualifications, like China and Taiwan.

Full of uncertainties

SME Association of Malaysia secretary-general Chin Chee Seong said while he totally agreed with Anwar on a new drive to encourage these Malaysians to return home, he doubted if offering more lucrative perks would work.

“There are many critical factors to consider,” he said.

Chin said the Malaysian diaspora is also looking at the country’s political landscape, its economic woes, the quality of education back home for their children and if discrimination still persists.

He said if they could not tick the boxes to these burning questions, it is highly unlikely these Malaysians would want to uproot themselves for something that is full of uncertainties.

It is a view that Teh Kee Sin, a consultant at the SME Association of South Johor, wholeheartedly shared.

“Apart from the exchange rate, another reason that some of our graduates go to Singapore to find work is the discrimination they encounter when looking for a job here,” he said.

“The brain drain is not a new phenomenon. It’s a problem Malaysia has faced for decades.

“Many had gone to Singapore, especially in the southern region where I am from. We feel it more acutely here.

“From unskilled workers, labourers, clerks, salespeople, to skilled workers, they all go there.”

Teh said without a doubt, many go to Singapore to find work because they earn more there than a similar job back home.

“The exchange rate, which is close to 3.5, is a huge temptation,” he said.

Teh said Malaysians are using Singapore as a “stepping stone” to landing more lucrative jobs in China or the Middle East.

“These countries are always on the lookout for skilled workers. Some have even gone further to Europe and the United States, joining the large multinationals,” he said.

“In such a scenario, what kind of offers can we give to attract the talent back?”

To stem a little of the brain drain, Teh said, the country needs a lot of foreign investments which could offer attractive salaries to highly skilled Malaysians.

He said to get that investment to flow in, the key is to have political stability.

“A politically stable country will attract high-tech foreign investment and enterprises with high added value,” he said.

Recently, former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin suggested that the government empower TalentCorp so that it can more effectively attract experts from various fields to return to Malaysia.

He said although the talent agency had succeeded in bringing back many Malaysians with various expertise, its scope of work was limited. – October 6, 2023.