Peruvian exodus due to insecurity and lack of employment: more than 368,000 compatriots would have not returned a year without returning

The emigration of Peruvians has reached worrying figures and could mark a new historical maximum with the official data that is at the end of 2024. Only until the first half of last year, more than 184,000 Compatriots that left abroad in 2023 accumulated at least one year without returning to the country, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI).

In dialogue with the Republic, Daniel Najarro, an analyst at Economic Studies of the Foreign Trade Society (Comexperú), indicated that this figure could double (368,000) at the end of the year and overcome the history of previous records, which will confirm a worrying Talent and workforce leak.

The main reasons, he points out, are the Lack of job opportunitiesthe increase in insecurity and economic uncertainty product of the “deterioration of confidence in the economic and social development of the country.”

Before COVID-19, when the country managed to reduce poverty, there was a constant decrease in Peruvians who left the country (average of 100,000).

“However, after the pandemic And with the absence of efficient responses from governments to insecurity, instability and insufficient economic growth, the upward trend of emigrants were visualized, ”he explained. In 2022 there was a peak of 279,000.

According to Ipsosif I had the possibility, 57% of compatriots would emigrate. “The search for better living conditions is the main reason, followed by the desire to escape the growing wave of insecurity”He strengthened.

Exodus of professionals

The loss of human capital seriously affects the economic development of Peru. Between 2020 and 2023, more than 554,000 were workers highly trained as administrators, engineers, technicians and teachers. In the same period, more than 127,000 students They left the country.

Unlike the migration of the 80s and 90s, the Peruvians who leave do not escape. According to the Professor of Economic History of the University of the Pacific (UP) José Cabrejos, “it is an election promoted by the search for a better quality of life and the disappointment with a country that does not offer opportunities. ”

Fissures in labor offer

• The increase in the youth unemployment rate also accelerates the decision to emigrate.
• In the third quarter of 2024, employment for those of 14 and 29 years was reduced by 245,623 jobs compared to the previous year, a sample of the deterioration of the youth market.
• From 1994 to 2023, the largest emigrant population is female (52%.)