Quite the contrary, as this recent Robert Walters whitepaper found, the majority of those earning a living abroad would actually prefer finding employment back in their home countries.

The whitepaper titled, “Return of the Asian talent” that focuses on overseas workers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam said the top three reasons for this are: To care for ageing parents; because workers recognize the demand for local talent with overseas experience and understand they are able to command higher pay; and their affinity with the culture back home.

According to the recruitment consultancy’s findings, there was approximately 4 million Vietnamese working abroad as of September 2015, 1.4 million Malaysians as of 2009, 429,872 Indonesians as of 2014, 212,500 Singaporeans as of June 2015 and 148,240 Thais according to numbers from June 2015.

Of these, an average of 75.6 percent of professionals want to return home. The breakdown in the survey says this is true for 85 percent Indonesians, 82 percent Singaporeans, 81 percent Thais, 70 percent Vietnamese and 60 percent Malaysians. Read more →