Brain drain from Southeast Asia poses obstacle to growth

(June 6): Nyl Patangan, a nursing graduate from the Philippines, left his native land in search of a better life. Now working in a Chicago hospital after a stint in Dubai, he's supporting his parents back home and is buying his mother a Toyota Vios.

A recent study by the Asian Development Bank shows that the number of immigrants with university degrees who left to work in richer nations in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development surged 66% in the decade through 2010-2011 to 2.8 million. More than half of them came from the Philippines, with hundreds of thousands more working in regions outside the OECD like the Middle East.

The trend has persisted, with the number of Filipinos leaving for work overseas rising 27% between 2011 and 2015.

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