According to UNESCO’s 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report on Migration, Displacement, and Education released earlier last week—Albania is among 10 countries with the highest level of highly-skilled labor force which is still choosing to emigrate abroad.
The study noted, that the emigration rates of the highly-skilled labor force are above 20% in about one-third of 174 Countries—including Albania, Eritrea, and Grenada. Up until 2010, 26% of Albania’s high-skilled labor force had emigrated abroad.
According to UNESCO, the consequences of such high levels of emigration have adverse effects for poor, low, and middle-income countries—while at least 43 of them, did not meet the Educational Funding standard. Overall, Albania has one of the highest rates of emigration in the region. The majority of Albanian immigrants live in Italy and Greece.
Data published by IOM and INSTAT shows that when the economic crisis’s hit these neighbor countries in 2007-2008, nearly 80% of immigrants returned home to Albania, mostly due to losing their jobs abroad.
According to these Reports, roughly 180,000 Albanians had returned home during 2008-2014, a move that lead to the expansion of the Country’s Labor Force by at least five percent. During this period, the Albanian Government adopted a five-year strategy aimed at facilitating the re-integration of these expatriates into Albanian Society and Culture once again.
The strategy helped set up Regional Offices and Vocational Centers, that would help address the challenges of these Albanian expatriates. In four years, these Offices and Centers were accessed by only 800 returning immigrants.
UNESCO has recommended that Albania must implement more policies in order to support Entrepreneurship and Start-Up Projects in the Tech Industry among young returning immigrants.
In the meantime, a report published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showed that the immigration of College and University Educated Albanians during 2010-2011 increased by 223% compared to the previous decade.
