A new pilot program for the repatriation of at least five hundred Greek professionals with high qualifications and experience, dubbed “Rebrain Greece,” was presented on Monday by the country’s Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis.
The program aims to work as a pilot for the gradual repatriation of thousands of highly-educated Greek nationals who left the country during the years of the financial crisis to find better-paying jobs in Northern Europe or America.
The new program guarantees a minimum monthly wage of €3,000 for the span of at least two years, beginning when the professionals return to their native land from abroad.
For the first year, the first €2,000 will be covered by the program and the rest will be paid by the companies involved, which will then have to employ the professional for at least twelve more months, continuing to offer the same salary of a minimum of €3,000 per month.
Eligible professionals who are interested in entering this program must be Greek nationals aged between 28 and 40 years of age who left the country to find a better professional environment abroad.
A new on-line system by which companies will be able to express their interest in participating in the program will be created soon as well.
There is no official data showing the exact number of Greek nationals who left the country between 2010 and 2018. However, by all accounts this number is very high, believed to be anywhere between 200,000 to 500,000 individuals.
Almost the entire European South experienced the same ”brain drain” phenomenon during these years of the economic crisis, with millions of primarily young professionals leaving Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece to find better jobs in the North.
