What resource crisis?

We are going to take a short break from the Myths about RCM series of articles to post a couple of articles recently published in the UK.

Among some of the magazines I write for is "Assets", the journal of the Institute of Asset Management in the UK. Most of the columns I write for there are designed to challenge views in that country. I hope they are of interest.

In recent time western countries such as the UK, Australia and the USA have suddenly become aware of the looming resources crunch for asset management. Experienced workers continue to retire and fewer young people enter the discipline, opting for often more lucrative fields of computing and financial services.

Yet in the Middle East there is no such shortage of labor. I currently work within the Gulf States where, in the United Arab Emirates for example, a population of approximately 200,000 has been able to generate a GDP on a par with Australia. And with growing percentages of their revenue coming from areas other than oil production.

So if few or none of them actually work in directly technical roles, how could they have done this?

The Gulf States have embraced concepts and principles of free trade that the West has yet to come to grips with, although they are perfectly positioned to do so. With an estimated 80% foreign population the entire nation operates a permanent “guest worker” program. People stream in from all over the world to perform the skilled and professional roles required to make this region the modern day success story that it is.

When a requirement surfaces, recruiters go to India, the Philippines, Europe, and the Americas looking for suitable talent. (They even take the odd Australian like me!) The result is a productive nation built on the back of experienced and skilled labor drawn from wherever it is found.

European states have the advantage of easily drawing from a resource pool across many countries; the USA has the advantage of drawing from their neighbors in Latin America, and Australia has Asia on its doorstep. India, for example, generates more engineers than any other country in the world, as well as a substantial level of the worlds IT capacity.

So I ask you; what skills shortage? Do we still believe that people trained in the “developing world” do not have the level of skills we require?

In the West we persist in looking inwards; generating competency frameworks, encouraging investment in internal training programs and tweaking professional memberships through tax incentives, and raising barriers to guest workers or temporary migrant workers. And while all of these are valuable efforts, they are missing the point.

We seem to have lost sight of one fundamental issue; we don’t have any real issues with employment. We have issues with levels of professionals in specific areas.

What I have witnessed in the last year has led me to the following conclusion. If western nations don’t start to look outwards, and embrace the free movement of labor throughout the world, then they will soon find themselves being eclipsed by other nations that do.

Don’t believe me? Come to Dubai.