Tunisia’s engineering industry is going through a deep crisis, with the departure of 39,000 engineers abroad.
This accounts for about 43 percent of the 90,000 professionals registered with the Tunisian Order of Engineers (ILO).
Tunisia, long recognised for the quality of its engineering training, is today facing the effects of a globalisation of the labour market that values technical profiles.
This figure was presented by the President of the ILO, Kamel Sahnoun, during a parliamentary hearing included in the report of the Committee on Education, Vocational Training and Scientific Research on a bill relating to private higher education.
In this sense, departures are taking on a worrying scale.
On average, 20 engineers leave Tunisia every day, while some 8,000 engineering graduates join the national labour market each year.
This growing imbalance between training and professional integration is accentuated by the growing attractiveness of job offers abroad.
Furthermore, training engineers represents a significant cost for the state.
The President of the ILO estimated this amount at nearly 650 million Tunisian dinars per year, or approximately 2.13 billion euros.
The exodus of engineers thus generates a double loss for Tunisia financial, but also in terms of strategic human capital.
In this perspective, the Tunisian authorities are called upon to rethink policies for retaining technical skills.
Improving working conditions, creating clear career prospects and appropriate financial incentives are mentioned as possible levers to limit this haemorrhage.
Without structural reform, the shortage of local skills could have a lasting impact on the country’s industrial competitiveness.
SL/ac/Sf/fss/as/APA