In a column I wrote two months ago, I noted the large and increasing number of Filipinos seeking work abroad, particularly nurses.

In Region VIII, with around 20 schools offering nursing courses there are at least 2,000 nursing graduates a year. Probably a fourth of that number will be able to work abroad, some of them as early as two years after graduation.

This has been referred to as the “brain drain”.

The principle in economics called – the law of supply and demand, explains the phenomenon of the brain drain. Many of our graduates prefer to work abroad because of the high pay. Nursing schools will increase and expand (and increase their fees) because many want to be nurses.

Some schools reject as many as 19 out of every 20 applicants due to limited facilities. That is how high the demand is.

How can this brain drain be reversed?

Nothing much can be done with nurses because their salaries in the Philippines can’t be raised to as high (or even half) as those offered abroad.

The prime candidate for reversing the brain drain, from the standpoint of the overall labor market, is ICT or Information and Communication Technology.

Industries like contact or call centers, and companies engaged in medical transcription, animation, back-office operations and software development currently provide employment to over 160,000 Filipinos who benefit from above-average compensation (and the annual increase in employment is way above 10 percent). In this set-up, companies abroad hire Filipinos who work here instead of in their offices, say, in the US.

What is also significant about this is that these industries enable workers to stay in regional centers (like Tacloban City and municipalities nearby) because branches can be established by these industries in places outside Metro Manila. The major reasons for this are the availability of manpower and the presence of adequate infrastructure to support ICT industries.

Eastern Visayas can be an important player in this field and thereby help reverse the brain drain.