Aussies abroad not ready to come home
By | theage.com.au | 25 April
Expatriate Australians have heard Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's call to return home but will not be heeding it any time soon.
From London to Tokyo to Chicago and all points in between, Australians are everywhere - about one million are living, working or studying abroad, according to the prime minister, including 200,000 in London alone.
For now, many say strutting their stuff on the world stage outweighs the pull of this country's advantages in lifestyle, even though the unanimous agreement was that Australia was the best place to raise a family.
One expat is 25-year-old solicitor Ishaan Nangia, who took up an offer from London-based law firm Linklaters immediately after graduating in 2006.
Mr Nangia, who grew up in a family which "always moved around", said heading overseas was something he always wanted to do.
"There was a choice initially about whether it was better to be a bigger fish in a slightly smaller pond or to be a small fish in a very big pond," Mr Nangia said from Tokyo, where he is on a six-month secondment.
"The thought of making it in London, the most competitive and international market, was a challenge I was looking forward to."
During his recent whirlwind global trip, Mr Rudd made a direct appeal for Australians to return home.
"I know it's worth being here, but shouldn't you be back home too?" the prime minister said in a speech at the London School of Economics.
"There's a lot of things to do.
"We have huge challenges."
But his appeal to Australia's "professionals of fortune" may struggle to be heard, as young workers in this country are actively courted by foreign multinationals, who love their work ethic and enjoy their company.
Linklaters, for example, brought their recruiting drive to Australian universities in a bid to lure the brightest graduates.
And the opening of China's economy has sparked a huge demand for workers, according to Margaret McCartney, founder of Expat International, a company which advises corporations on staff relocation.
"It's that middle management that's missing in China and, of course, it's a huge country with huge industries and commerce," Ms McCartney said from Melbourne.
"A lot of western middle managers are being attracted over there."
Christopher Dick is an analyst at SAV Credit in London. Before that he spent two and a half years at investment bank ABN Amro in The Netherlands.
The 30-year-old said he left his Melbourne-based company in mid-2005 because he believed there were limited opportunities to progress.
"Once those positions are filled, there's not as much churn, there's not as many people moving around so it's a little bit harder for you to move through the ranks and get that diversity of experience," Mr Dick said from London.
While having so many Australians abroad was a "terrible drain", Expat International's Ms McCartney said most did come home, usually in their 40s.
Mr Nangia and Mr Dick could not give a time frame, but both said they would eventually return.
But 27-year-old Thomas Wood was not so sure.
Mr Wood, who after working at the Department of Defence in Canberra for 18 months, decided to continue his studies in political science and earned a scholarship to study for his PhD at the University of Chicago.
The scholarship covered all tuition and included a "small stipend", which was enough to enjoy a "basic standard of living".
He said it was more than anything offered to graduate students in the social sciences in Australia.
"The massive financial resources of American universities just made it a lot more attractive as a place to study," Mr Wood said from Chicago.
"I get to concentrate on the field, so hopefully the work benefits from that."
On the prospects of returning, he said Australia needed political scientists "like it needed another hole in the head".
"Australia trains a lot of PhDs and they can't find jobs," Mr Wood said.
"I think my generation of Australians - who are training to be academics abroad - a lot of them by necessity are going to have to stay overseas."
If Mr Rudd was worried about the brain drain, one wonders what New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark thinks, given statistics released this week showed about 4,150 Kiwis left the country permanently in March.
Of those, about 3,100 chose Australia.
AAP
First published by TheAge.com.au on April 25 2008
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