JAMAICA has been experiencing 'Brain Drain' since the 1950s and a 'Brawn Drain' since the late 19th century.

The society was happy and relieved because migration was a vent for surplus labour. This release of unemployed labour has been a direct consequence of the failure of the Jamaican economy to provide employment for all of its labour force. It also stemmed from the subsistence wages which many of the employed were forced to accept.

The 'Brawn Drain' was seen as beneficial for the economy, but the 'Brain Drain' was regarded as retarding economic development by depriving the economy of scarce skills.

In the 21st century, the critical determinant of economic success is the quantity and quality of human resources. Jamaica, therefore, cannot afford to lose any of its skilled human resources, given the paltry state of the Jamaican economy. The idea to keep, train, and retain in productive activity the maximum amount of human resources must be a central plank of economic policy.

Jamaica has been training a sufficient quantity of skilled human resources but we have not been able to retain an adequate number of them.

One reason for that is the migration of people in search of employment and/or higher remuneration. This is inevitable in a world with much richer countries in need of young, skilled workers, eg the United States. But we are failing to attract Jamaicans abroad to return home, and therefore, despite remittances, their contribution is lost to Jamaica.

Ironically, the vast majority of Jamaicans abroad want to return to their homeland. But when many of them attempt to do so they are either discouraged by their fellow Jamaicans, or are faced with the hardships of living here.

However, the real negative push factor they face is the vicious animosity of their fellow Jamaicans who subject returnees to many unpleasant acts, including robbery.

The facts are not in dispute. What, though, explains this antagonistic behaviour? First is jealousy, the most pandemic of human emotions spawned by resentment that Jamaicans who lived and worked abroad come back economically better off.

There is, too, an entrenched feeling that with more Jamaicans returning home, the more people will have to share scarce resources like land. This, of course, is arrant nonsense, because returnees enlarge the economic pie with their skills, experience, and capital.

Then there is the misguided view that once a Jamaican goes abroad to live and/or work, he or she is somehow no longer a "true" Jamaican. The departure is subconsciously viewed as an act of betrayal and the sojourn in foreign lands is assumed to contaminate them. They are derided in the same vein as the "Colon man" in the old folk song.

Ironically, the overseas Jamaicans and those who return home are among the most patriotic, hard-working, and law-abiding citizens. In many cases, they give back to this country beyond measure. Proof of that is in the stories of this year's nominees for the Observer Business Leader Award.

It is not asking too much, we believe, to welcome our fellow Jamaicans back home when they decide to return.

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