Japa: Two-thirds Nigerian professionals willing to work abroad, says report

According to a recent survey by Boston Consulting Group and The Network, nearly two-thirds of professionals in Nigeria and three-quarters of professionals in Ghana are open to working overseas.

Decoding Global Talent 2024, a report that polled over 150,000 workers across 188 nations, discovered that professionals in their younger years and those from rapidly expanding populations were more likely to look for work overseas.

Strong economies in English-speaking nations like Australia, the US, Canada, and the UK were the most popular travel destinations, with New York and London being among the most sought-after cities.

According to the report, Lagos and Abuja were ranked 103rd and 63rd, respectively, in terms of desirable cities, while Nigeria was ranked 67th and Ghana 72nd in terms of appeal to foreign workers.

"The severe human resource shortage is posing a serious threat to the most significant economies in the world. Sebastian Dettmers, CEO of Stepstone Group, stated that the main causes of this impending labour market gap are mismatches between job supply and demand and declining birth rates.

The movement of labour offers a great chance to close this gap. Our labour markets need to be more flexible so that employees can relocate to areas where they are most needed and where the best opportunities for their goals and skill sets are available.

Nigerians are more inclined to work abroad in the following ten countries: Germany, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, France, Australia, Canada, UK, and USA.

This represents a modest shift from the survey conducted in 2020, which indicated that Nigerians were seeking employment in the Netherlands (ranked eighth in 2020), New Zealand (ranked ninth in 2020), and Ireland (ranked tenth in 2020).

Canada, the USA, the UK, Australia, Germany, the UAE, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium are the top ten countries for employment opportunities for Ghanaians.

"West Africa continues to offer attractive job opportunities for local professionals and others from the rest of the continent and overseas who are seeking to advance their careers," said Adwoa Banful, Principal at BCG.

People are moving to Nigeria and Ghana for a number of obvious reasons, chief among them being the high calibre of employment opportunities and the friendly culture and family-centric environment.”
The report states that professional advancement is the main reason why global talent relocates overseas, and those who are willing to do so cite financial and economic reasons (64 percent of respondents from across the globe, 60 percent from Nigeria, and 69 percent from Ghana).

Additionally, their primary motivations for doing so included career considerations like work experience (cited by 56% of global, 69% of Nigerian, and 73% of Ghanaian respondents), a concrete job offer (cited by 54% of global, 51% of Nigerian, and 50% of Ghanaian respondents), and a better overall quality of life (55% of global, 51% of Nigerian, and 57% of Ghanaian respondents).

Better opportunities for training and education were also mentioned by Nigerian respondents (64 per cent versus 37 per cent of global respondents) and more interesting or challenging work (63 per cent versus 48 per cent of global respondents) as top reasons to relocate.
The same is true for Ghanaian respondents who stated that they would move for more interesting or challenging work (68%) and better opportunities for education and training (70%).

"The quality of job opportunities was the top deciding factor (65%) for global respondents who gave a specific reason for choosing a particular country, followed by quality of life and climate (54%).

The report noted that "other country-specific characteristics, such as opportunities for citizenship (18%) and health care (15%) also play a role, but are secondary factors."

Respondents cited a number of reasons for moving to Nigeria, including the country's welcoming culture and inclusivity (34%), family-friendliness (40%) and high calibre of employment opportunities (52%).

Qualitative job opportunities (48 percent of respondents), a friendly and inclusive culture (40 percent), and safety, stability, and security (38 percent) are among the reasons people chose Ghana.

According to Banful, "the inability to bring family members or a life partner with them when they relocate (43 percent and 50 percent, respectively) and the cost of relocation (39 percent and 36 percent, respectively) are the biggest reasons highlighted by Nigerian and Ghanaian respondents, who are not willing to move overseas."

"People don't associate countries with certain generally attributed advantages and choose them on that basis," said Sacha Knorr, co-managing director of The Network.