How to Calculate the Skilled Emigration Rate
The skilled emigration rate equals skilled emigrants divided by the whole skilled stock a country trained, meaning emigrants plus the skilled workers still at home.
The Skilled Emigration Rate formula
Calculator
Enter skilled workers abroad and at home to get the emigration rate and the training investment that left with them.
People trained at home who hold the qualification and now work overseas.
The same qualification, still working in the country.
Used to size the investment that walked out with the emigrants.
20% of the skilled people this country trained are working somewhere else.
- Skilled stock the country trained
- 60,000
- Retention rate
- 80%
- Skilled workers at home per emigrant
- 4
- Training cost that left with them
- $300,000,000
The denominator is everyone trained, 60,000 workers at home and abroad, not just the ones who stayed.
80% of the trained stock is still working in the country, and the two rates add to one hundred.
For every worker who left, 4 stayed, which is the readable version of the same ratio.
Valuing the leavers at what it cost to train them puts $300,000,000 of past spending abroad, the figure usually set against the remittances they send home.
How to calculate Skilled Emigration Rate, step by step
- 1Count the skilled workers abroad. Take the people born or trained at home who hold the qualification and now live overseas, usually read off destination countries' census data by country of birth.
- 2Count the ones still working at home. Take the domestic stock holding the same qualification, from a professional register or the labour force survey, over the same period.
- 3Add them to get the trained stock. The denominator is everyone the country trained, at home and abroad. Dividing by the workers still at home alone leaves the leavers out of the base and reports too large a number.
- 4Divide and convert to a percent. Skilled emigration rate = emigrants ÷ trained stock × 100. Doing it profession by profession says far more than one national figure, since doctors and engineers leave at different rates.
Worked example: Skilled Emigration Rate
A country has 48,000 graduates in a profession working at home and 12,000 more who have moved abroad. The stock it trained is 48,000 + 12,000 = 60,000, so the skilled emigration rate = 12,000 ÷ 60,000 × 100 = 20%, and four trained workers stay for every one who leaves. At a training cost of $25,000 each, the emigrants carry $300,000,000 of past training spending overseas with them, the figure normally set against the remittances they send home.
Skilled Emigration Rate questions
Why are the emigrants included in the denominator?
The rate is meant to say what share of the people a country trained have left. Using only the workers still at home as the base leaves the leavers out of the group being measured and reports a bigger number than the share who actually went.
Is brain drain always a loss for the sending country?
Not automatically. Emigrants send remittances, some return with new skills and capital, and the chance of working abroad can raise how many people train in the first place. The loss is largest where the state paid for training that a small domestic profession cannot replace, as with doctors.
Why calculate the rate profession by profession?
A national average hides the problem. A country can look fine on graduates as a whole while losing a large share of one profession, and a health system depends on that specific stock rather than on graduates in general.
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