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NST Leader: Brainexit

We are fast becoming a nation of leavers and remainers like Britain. Not the Brexit kind, but the Brainexit type.

This is no breaking news. Malaysian talent has been in flight mode for a long time. Generations, to be exact.

Talent, like water, finds its own level. Push or pull, it will go there. Malaysia can't do much about pull factors as it is not within its control.

Push factors are a different story. These are levers that Putrajaya and employers have freedom to manipulate. Here prevarication rules.

Governments come and go, acknowledging talent flight as a problem, but doing very little to nothing to entice the leavers to stay.

True, TalentCorp Malaysia Bhd is an attempt to tempt them back. But it, too, fails in a big way if the money spent versus the results achieved by the agency is factored in.

Its lofty aim of making Malaysia a talent hub is a target too far. Where TalentCorp succeeded, though, was very little to write home about.

Its focus was on some, not the many. Returning experts is its language. Small wonder, what it thought was a success was the annual return of mere hundreds, not thousands.

Up to last year, its grand total was a mere 5,774, according to a media report. But we must admit, TalentCorp has a good motto: "Attract. Nurture. Retain." A subtle hint to our employers and Putrajaya? Perhaps too subtle for even the agency to follow.

We have no quarrel with making Malaysia a talent hub, but this can't happen if the country is bleeding talent.

If we can't keep our talent home, how are we to bring others here? Unless we are after a parallel human resource world, a high everything for foreign talent and low everything for Malaysians.

This is a recipe for disaster. If this is our aim, there will come a time when there will be more leavers than remainers.

Malaysia must work hard to keep local talent in the country. We can take a narrow view and focus all our energy on matters of human resource. This is no way to make leavers remainers.

Malaysians leave not just because of what happens in the office, but also what doesn't happen in Putrajaya.

Start with the office. Media reports quoting surveys across Malaysia beginning 2015 had one common theme: there is just no work-life balance and career opportunities here.

Randstad, a global human resource services company, confirms the importance of the two to employees in its latest survey.

This doesn't mean money doesn't matter for Malaysians. It does. Higher salary is one of the top reasons for brain drain.

Malaysia's salary may not be as low as in Hungary, Zimbabwe or Ethiopia, but it is certainly low. Malaysia's minimum salary of RM1,500 is evidence enough. But still, Malaysian employers did their best to stall it.

Our employers are a strange lot. While acknowledging employees to be a valuable asset, many employers don't treat them as such.

Now for Putrajaya. Deputy Human Resources Minister Mustapha Sakmud on Monday revealed three main reasons for our talent flight: social injustice, better career prospects and pay, not necessarily in the order.

We wonder why it took Putrajaya that long to state the obvious. But stating it is one thing and doing something about it is another. Just do it, is our advice in borrowed words.

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