Cnel: brain drain costs 16 billion a year, those who leave ask for high salaries and merit

93% of the sample examined are graduates, with 45% holding a master's degree, 22% a master's degree, 14% a bachelor's degree and 12% a doctorate. 58% left Italy as soon as they finished their studies, without ever having worked there. 87% of respondents live in a European country (60% in the European Union, 27% in non-EU Europe) and 8.5% in North America. For the president of the CNEL Renato Brunetta it is "sixteen billion a year of human capital trained in Italy and put to good use elsewhere" which represents "a haemorrhage that no knowledge economy can afford". Brunetta underlines that "almost two thirds of those who responded declare that in five years it will be where there will be the best opportunities: therefore also in Italy, if we know how to create them".

The so-called brain drain, to return to Italy, mainly ask for a significant increase in wages, considered extremely relevant by 83% of respondents. By adding the relevance judgments, job opportunities suited to one's profile reach 88% and merit at 79%. Return incentives follow with 75% and work-life balance with 72%, while accessible housing and efficient public services, the areas of most direct competence of the public actor, close the ranking with 63% and 62%.

The report states that wages and merit are the causes that explain the flight from Italy. Low wages are extremely relevant for four out of five respondents, followed by a work culture judged to be backward and the poor valorization of skills. 49% indicate the slowness of bureaucracy and 48% the weight of clientelism and recommendations, a share that grows significantly among those who left the South. When asked which single intervention would have absolute priority, over half of the respondents (53%) chose wages, almost one in five (19%) job opportunities, 6% meritocracy in the strict sense. In the North, salary priority collects 55%, in the South it drops to 48% and leaves room for requests for merit and stability of employment.

The investigation fits into the statistical framework developed by the CNEL, which photographs a true generational hemorrhage: between 2011 and 2024, Italy lost, net of returns, 441 thousand young people between 18 and 34 years old, with a record negative balance of over 61 thousand units in 2024 alone. The anomaly is certified by the Synthetic Index of Migratory Flows (ISFM) created by the CNEL: for every peer who arrives from an advanced economy, more than 14 young Italians leave (14.5), compared to a substantially equal ratio (around unity) in the other large European nations.

The value of lost human capital is estimated at 159.5 billion euros in the period 2011-2024, equal to approximately 16 billion per year according to the most recent trends. At purchasing power parity, between 2000 and 2024 Italy's wage disadvantage worsened compared to all its main European partners: from an advantage of 1% to a delay of 7% compared to Spain, from a gap of 14% to 36% compared to Germany, up to rising from 39% to 71% compared to Switzerland.

According to Full Professor of Political Economy and Rector of the University of Milan-Bicocca, Giovanna Iannantuoni, "over the last 25 years, the Italian economy has shown an unsatisfactory productivity dynamic, accompanied by a weak capacity for innovation and a progressive difficulty in fully exploiting the available skills". In practice, human capital and technological innovation are the keys to developing a dynamic and active economy. To make the country grow, investments and strategies to recover the brain drain would therefore be necessary.