By Shefali Rekhi, Assistant Foreign Editor

MR VEDANTA Kumar, 22, could not find a job in the recession-hit United States after graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania last year.

Like many starry-eyed foreign students, he had hoped to gain international exposure by working at a leading multinational or bank in the country.

But his final months of study, during which he vigorously searched for jobs, coincided with the dramatic meltdown in the financial sector. Realising his options in the US would be limited, he turned his attention to his homeland of India.

Initially reluctant to go home, given memories of difficult living conditions and potholed roads, he set his reservations aside after he won a plum position at a leading MNC in Mumbai.

'The compensation offered was comparable with what I would have earned in the US, taking standards of living into account,' he told The Straits Times.

His decision was vindicated within weeks of taking the job in December. Even as the global downturn worsened, India's banking and financial service sector weathered the storm.

Mr Kumar was also thrilled with the change in the nation's once-blinkered corporate environment. People there were now more receptive to 'returnees' like him who have spent time abroad.

'My goal,' he said, 'is to buy a Ferrari within 10 years and I am sure I can do it.'

Like Mr Kumar, thousands of Asian professionals have been flocking home to their countries of origin for work, with Western economies among the hardest hit by the global downturn. Western nationals are also looking to Asia.

This is dramatically accelerating the 'brain gain' in this part of the world, a process that began a few years ago.

'We are witnessing a strong interest in employment here by foreign professionals from the US, Europe and Australia, some of whom have been made redundant in their home countries,' said Mr David Jones, managing director of Robert Half International (Asia Pacific), a specialised financial recruitment firm.

'Through our website alone, we are seeing a rise of as much as 300 per cent in the number of CVs from the US, Europe and Australia in the past six months.'

According to Mr Roger Olofsson, associate director of Robert Walters Singapore, a recruitment specialist, the spike in job seekers from overseas has increased in recent months.

'Earlier, most of the applicants from overseas were in the financial service sector, but now we are seeing many more applications in the skilled type of job functions such as fast-moving consumer goods, petroleum and pharmaceuticals,' he said.

What is giving these new applicants hope is that China and India are faring way better than other major economies, and appear to have the potential to pull along some regional economies as well.

Beijing, which is implementing a four trillion yuan (S$880 billion) stimulus programme, is expected to post economic growth of between 5 and 8 per cent this year, while India is confident of turning in 7 per cent growth.

Open economies such as Singapore and Hong Kong are suffering more in the global downturn, but job seekers from advanced economies such as the US and Britain are still trying their luck.

Some of these job applicants are overqualified but willing to settle for less pay, setting the stage for a job market shake-out, experts say.

Hewitt Singapore's country leader Julia Smith said the resumes the management consulting firm is receiving now are from people who have a lot of experience, sometimes in different markets: 'But while there is opportunity for overqualified people, we are asking companies to assess if they are the right cultural fit.'

Comparing the matching process to high school romance, she said: 'It's like the really cute guy wants to go out with you when nobody else wants to go out with you. But then, as soon as the pretty girl is interested in him, he is not interested in you.

'So what we are telling companies to do is make some really smart hiring decisions.'

SEEKING LUCRE AND LIFESTYLE

Earlier this year, when 27 financial institutions from Shanghai went on an overseas headhunting trip to London, Chicago and New York, they were greeted with an overwhelming response.

Nearly 2,200 applicants, about 12 per cent of whom were expatriates in those countries, sent in resumes.

'We were looking to hire only 27 people to fill our mid- or high-level positions but received 540 applications,' said Mr Yang Qingzhong, human resource general manager of China's largest brokerage, Haitong Securities.

'It's far beyond our expectations,' he told China Daily. And their salary expectations are not as high, he added.

Other companies had similar experiences. Finally, 840 applicants found jobs.

Besides regional giants China and India, other Asian economies are attracting returnees and expat job seekers as well, and job inquiries are also coming from the Middle East, experts say.

A flow in the other direction - the brain drain - emerged as a serious problem in Asia in the late 1950s and 1960s, as Asians from less developed economies left for universities abroad to improve their job prospects. Many stayed on, attracted by the cleaner and safer living conditions, though they maintained links with home.

Now, as many return along with their children, they realise much has changed at home - glitzy shopping malls, far fewer power blackouts, swanky condominiums and luxury cars. The alluring plush lifestyle comes complete with maids, chauffeurs, security guards, golf on weekdays and holidays at exotic locations.

'Working overseas helped open my eyes to see and experience a different world, both socially and professionally,' said Mr Timothy Ho, 30, a manager who returned to Singapore earlier this year after three years in the US.

'At the same time, living there helped me to appreciate all the good things in Singapore which I started to miss the moment I touched down in Houston.

'Aside from family and friends in Singapore, it was the simple things which we normally take for granted, such as the wide variety of food and the convenience of hawker centres and coffee shops, that I missed the most.'

Likewise, another Wharton graduate Pankaj Dinodia, 25, needed little nudging from his family to return to New Delhi.

And when he decided to set up an online network late last year to help others interested in returning, he was surprised at the overwhelming response. In the past few months, his company has already placed nearly 450 expats of Indian origin in senior positions in the country, through a network of about 60 India-based mentors and industry captains.

'Indians are giving India a serious look,' he told The Straits Times.

There is also the reality of limited visa options to stay and work in the United States, with Washington tightening regulations after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.

But the majority of those leaving the US are doing so out of necessity.

Most are under 40 and are returning because of better job prospects in their home countries, according to a recent study of 1,200 Indian and Chinese returnees led by Mr Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at the Labour and Worklife Programme at Harvard Law School.

'The next Silicon Valley won't be located in the US,' he said. 'It will likely be in Hyderabad or Shanghai.'

BRAIN WARS

With a doctorate from London's Imperial College and 61/2 years of work experience in Britain, Mr Raymond Toh, 34, flew in to Singapore last year as the newly-appointed vice-

president for IT Infrastructure at Credit Suisse here.

While it did take him a while to get something he liked, he believes there will be opportunities for returnees or expats with expertise in growing markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong.

Many expats occupy senior management positions in the banking and financial service sector here, he said, reflecting the shortage of homegrown expertise.

Keen to contribute, he has been helping and mentoring other Singaporeans in Britain to return as well.

Experts say the brain gain is not just because of individual choices, but because of decisions made by nations, with some having embarked on brain gain efforts decades ago.

According to Professor Jean-Pierre Lehman, who teaches International Political Economy at Switzerland's IMD business school, Taiwan's late leader Chiang Kai-shek recognised the importance of building its economy to strengthen the island. As part of this process, and thanks to generous US aid, Taiwan sent its best students to US universities.

But only two out of 10 returned due to the island's bleak social, intellectual and political environment.

Then Taiwan did several things: It established science parks and provided a good environment for R&D; it created opportunities for entrepreneurs through deregulation; and it ushered in democracy.

By the 1990s, thanks to its returning brains, Taiwan became a high-tech powerhouse, Prof Lehman wrote in a commentary piece for Project Syndicate, an international newspaper syndicate.

Likewise, South Korea's former authoritarian president Park Chung Hee, who is still revered in the country by many for rebuilding South Korea's economy from the ruins of the 1950-53 Korean War, led the brain gain initiative for his country.

Besides setting up institutes and initiating administrative reforms, he empowered returnees by assuring them of research autonomy.

But although he laid the framework, thousands began to return only after the dictatorial regime of his successor Choong Doo Hwan ended in 1988.

Singapore's brain gain initiative, led by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, has encouraged many scientists and researchers to make the Republic their home.

Among them are Dr Alan Colman of cloned sheep Dolly fame, who is executive director of the Singapore Stem Cell Consortium, part of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research's (A*Star) Institute of Medical Biology; Professor Daniel Tenen of Harvard Medical School, who heads the National University of Singapore's cancer facility; and geologist Kerry Sieh of the California Institute of Technology, who heads Nanyang Technological University's earthquake centre.

'Foreign talent is the yeast for further sustainable development of Asian economies towards becoming fully developed knowledge-based societies,' explains Professor Thomas Menkhoff, who teaches Organisational Behaviour at Singapore Management University.

'Like in the early 1980s, when Singapore invited countries such as France, the UK or Germany to set up technical training institutes with a focus on precision engineering and other high-tech skills, the development of new, value-creating industries such as the biomedical sciences or digital media is difficult to realise if you do not leverage on brains overseas.'

In the global competition for talent, Mr Gerard Chai, managing director (Singapore and Indonesia) at top recruiter Korn/Ferry International, said Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai are in the first tier of job markets in terms of preferred location for executives.

Beijing, Mumbai, Seoul and Tokyo come next, he added. Other cities are also getting in on the act, among them Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi and Manila.

As the new talents are absorbed in the years ahead, policymakers and city planners expect them to lift standards of excellence and deepen the connections between the East and West.

In the meantime, the influx means a shakeup. Confident, demanding, cosmopolitan and fired by a desire to make their mark, these new entrants are expected to pass on their sense of restlessness.

But the issues of whether they will be here for the long term and if they will be accepted remain. There are already instances of hundreds who came and left.

Mr Kumar, too, is keeping his options open.

'Sometime in the future, I want to be an entrepreneur. And I'll go wherever there is potential for my passion to thrive,' he said.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.