Bringing back brains: Greece moves from brain drain to brain gain

After a decade and a half brain drain Greece records reverse movement: program Rebrain Greece attracted more than two thousand specialists and companies seeking to bring personnel home.

Greece calls its specialists home

After years of crisis emigration, Greece seems to be moving to a new stage – from brain drain to brain return. The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection reported that the state platform Rebrain Greecelaunched in 2023, has already attracted more than two thousand registered participants – specialists and companies.

Head of department Nicky Kerameus noted that the goal of the program is not just the return of Greeks from abroad, but also the creation of stable, well-paid jobs in the country. “You need personnel, and we need to return as many of our compatriots to their homeland as possible. We are creating opportunities that previously only existed overseas,” she said.

From London to New York: the search for “lost minds”

The next event of the program will be held December 7 in New Yorkwhere representatives of more than 30 Greek companies will meet with applicants from the diaspora. Similar meetings have already taken place in Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf and London. Platform Rebrain Greece brings together employers and professionals who want to return, creating a kind of digital talent repatriation agency.

Who returns to Greece

Study National Center for Documentation and Electronic Content (EKT) showed that the majority of repatriates are men (72%), aged 35–54 years (71%), with a higher or master’s education (79%). Moreover, 87% of them studied partly or completely in Greece before moving abroad in the period 2010–2019.

The main reasons for moving abroad were economic and professional reasons (89%)while personal or family circumstances played a role in only 10% of cases. Almost 60% of those who returned went to work in the private sector, 11% became civil servants, 13% are self-employed, and 3% started their own businesses. It’s interesting that tax benefits for those returning they played a minimal role – 84% did not use them.

Conditions that hold and return

When asked what would help attract more Greeks from abroad, 79% of respondents indicated the need for better functioning of institutionsand 78% – for the modernization of infrastructure and government structures. However, 73% admitted that foreign experience made them more competitive and helped them apply new skills in the Greek labor market.

Portrait of the new “returnees”

Among the sectors where repatriates found work, the leaders are: construction (11%), education (10%), information technology (10%)consulting, healthcare and remote employment for foreign companies. In terms of income, 44% receive up to 1,500 euros per month, 27% – from 1,500 to 3,000, and 17% – above this level. More than two thirds have a family, and half have children.

The path from crisis to “reverse migration”

From 2010 to 2022, more than 1.08 million working-age citizensincluding 234 thousand young people aged 15–24 years. The Rebrain Greece program and growing investment in high-tech industries are designed to reverse this trend, creating opportunities at home that Greeks previously sought abroad.

“We have exhausted our internal human resources and are now looking for our people abroad,” says Kerameus. “We want them to believe in their homeland again.” If the state manages to combine reform with modernization, Greece could turn its brain drain into a sustainable return for the first time in two decades.

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