Malaysian construction professionals: Why are they leaving?

War on global talents has been going on for decades and the international mobility of talents has been increasing and has caused tremendous downside effects to countries such as Malaysia. According to the World Bank, up until 2010 there were estimated 1 million Malaysians working abroad and thus instigated the establishment of Talent Corporation in 2011.ÊNevertheless, in order to effectively entice these talents in coming back, finding out who are they and the main reasons they left Malaysia in the first place are mandatory. Although there are many researches in this area, little is known with regards to Malaysia, let alone the talent loss among the Malaysian construction professionals. An empirical study using a quantitative survey and interviews was carried out amongst Malaysian construction professionals working abroad, in an attempt to identify their characteristics and determine the main push and pull factors. By using SPSS and Rasch model of measurement, these factors are then ranked according to their importance. Interestingly the Malay professionals left Malaysia after gaining experience thus they are older as compared to the Chinese professionals. In addition, the most important reason of leaving Malaysia is due to lower income received in Malaysia. However, surprisingly other important motivations are related to personal behaviours such as to get exposure, curiosity, to challenge one's ability and also to live and work in a better environment. Therefore the main reasons are not just about money issue, they also revolve around other aspects of life. These findings hopefully would provide some insights for policy makers and the government in identifying this group of people and understanding the reasons they are leaving and thus could come up with more effective programmes of retaining and attracting these valuable talents in overcoming the talent loss phenomenon.