Authorities look for replacement to Belarusians

Official Minsk tries to find a replacement to Belarusians, who massively leave the country.

In the near future the parliament will consider a draft law, providing for compensations for foreign specialists. The deficiency of qualified personnel forces Minsk to invite foreign specialists to the country. The authorities are ready to make additional payments, Deutsche Welle reports.

According to the draft law, talented foreign workers and specialists will be provided a compensation of the costs of moving to the country and a one-time payment of settlement allowance, the deputy head of the department for migration and work with foreign citizens of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Siarhei Herasimau told on 26 March. The amounts of the compensations and payments have not yet been announced. The draft law will be considered in the first reading during the spring session of the parliament which starts on 2 April. The authorities already attempted to lure foreigners into the country before. But who would want to work in Belarus?


Where have all the specialists gone?

More than 12 thousand foreign students are studying in Belarus from 88 countries of the world. Their large part came from Turkmenistan (around 6 thousand), China (more than 2 thousand) and Russia (more than a thousand). According to the information of the Education Ministry’s press-secretary Julija Vanina, the representatives of CIS countries, Central, South-East and South-West Asia will dominate among the foreign students in 2013.

If these alumnus want to stay in Belarus and work in their profession, than the draft law mentioned above will liberate them from the necessity to obtain special permissions for practicing labor activities in the country. The only thing is that a former Minister of Labour Aliaksandr Sasnou does not understand who and on what grounds will define the degree of talent of potenatial specialists of foreign origin. Sasnou claims that domestic talented specialists have left the country looking for a better life and decent income. That is why the authorities hope to find professionals where the level of living and salaries are lower than in Belarus. The ex-minister predicts that the main contingent of the specialists willing to be employed in Belarus may come from South-East Asia.

Just recently – on 1 September 2012 – Aliaksandr Lukashenka ordered to decrease the number of students accepted to the institutes of higher education because of excessing, in his opinion, number of specialists of higher education. “The task has been set to get this process regulated within a year. It will be more fair to people – to accept as many students as we need”, - the ruler then said. And now it turns out that there is a strong deficiency of domestic specialists in Belarus. Where have they gone?


No money for professionals

As the head of the analytical center Strategy Leanid Zaika notes, in the country there is a deficiency of good economists, high-class managers for big companies, for example Belaruskali. Doctors, programmers, architects, the representatives of other professions in demand, requiring the high level of proficiency, go abroad because of law salaries. This causes the problem of staging whole sectors of economy.

Let us take, for example, the health care. In 2012 Brest region had its need in medicine workers satisfied by 76%, Mahilou region – 67%, there are districts in the country staffed with doctor by less than 50%. Such a situation is not only in medicine. “Talented specialists have found employment in Russia, United Kingdom, Germany, other countries, where the conditions for their work are by times more attractive than at home”, - Zaika states.

The hunt for good specialists goes on round the whole world. It is quite an expensive pleasure, so for Belarus, limited in finance, it will be much easier to get its own professionals interested in homeland jobs, then attract high-class specialists from abroad, the expert is sure.