Before Wednesday’s council of ministers’ meeting, President Nikos Christodoulides said the growth of the economy was creating new jobs and increased needs in the labour market in which the unemployment was at a 15-year low of five per cent. This was why he had decided to visit London in May to meet with Cypriots working there, “in order to present an attractive package for their return to Cyprus”.

The president said he would be accompanied by Cypriot and foreign businessmen that are looking for staff and added: “We will go to attempt – and I consider it will be successful – to bring (people) back to our country so we can have a brain gain instead of a brain drain.” While the shortage of low-skilled workers is being addressed by new regulations prepared by the government, solving the restricted supply of people for higher-grade more specialised work is evidently more difficult. So after London, will he also be visiting Athens to offer the many Cypriots working in Greece the same attractive package designed to tackle the brain drain he talked about?

Is Cyprus suffering from a brain drain? It would be very interesting to know how many Cypriot graduates are working abroad, in which countries and to establish the reasons they have chosen not to return to the island. In the past, the main reasons were the relatively low pay, restricted job opportunities and limited scope for professional growth and development. With the arrival of many big foreign firms in Cyprus and the improved management/structure of many local companies these reasons have – more or less – been eliminated, so why are young Cypriots not returning home for work?

It is doubtful the attractive package that the government will prepare will have the desired effect, because there could be other factors than just pay that causes young Cypriots to choose to work abroad. Living in a big, ‘happening’ city of millions might be taxing but it is also a dynamic and rewarding environment for young people wanting to be intellectually stimulated, to broaden their horizons, engage in a dynamic culture and develop personally or professionally. These options are very limited in a small and isolated island with a very small population that is cut off from the big metropolitan centres of the world. Things have improved significantly in terms of opportunities of professional advancement recently, but the options for go-getting, ambitious youngsters are limited in a small place.

On a more practical level, it is difficult to see what ‘attractive packages’ would lure Cypriots with careers and lives abroad back to the island. Would they be offered tax credits, rent-free accommodation, a lump sum payment, subsidised housing loans, free airline tickets? And would any incentives package not be seen as a form of discrimination against those Cypriots who returned here without being offered anything?

There could be another way of dealing with the brain drain, but it would require more time, more work and much greater political resolve to implement. Its positive effects and benefits for the economy, however, would be much longer lasting, as it could completely reshape our economy. The government must consider dealing with the brain drain that is taking place on the island by hundreds of intelligent and highly qualified graduates taking jobs as public sector bureaucrats and thus becoming net receivers rather than net-contributors to the economy.

The public sector is the main cause of the brain drain President Christodoulides and his government are rightly concerned about. The high wages, guaranteed annual pay rises, iron-clad job security, short working hours, abundance of fringe benefits and obscenely high pensions are too attractive for anyone to resist. The result is that people with the abilities and qualities to make a big contribution to the wealth-producing private sector end up wasting their potential, shuffling files, sitting on committees and under-utilising their intellectual powers. Cyprus society is wasting valuable human resources by offering an obscenely, attractive package for people to work in the economy’s most unproductive sector.

We would have the brain gain the president wants if we reduced the flow of talented people seeking work in the public sector. This, admittedly, would be difficult to achieve as it would require radical reform to make employment in the public sector less attractive, but it could be done. First, the size of the civil service must be reduced and digitalisation could be used to drastically cut numbers; the banks have used digitalisation to radically cut staff numbers and the state could do the same. Pay, work terms, earning potential and pensions for new entrants should be made much less attractive than they are at present, thus discouraging capable individuals from applying for jobs.

Until the mid-1980s, the average earning potential for well-qualified graduates was higher in the private sector. The government should be working to establish this regime now, if it wants to achieve the brain gain that will ensure the long-term growth of the economy.