A GERMAN BRAIN DRAIN: ” For a nation that invented the term ‘guest worker’ for its immigrant labourers, Germany is facing the sobering fact that record numbers of its own often highly-qualified citizens are fleeing the country to work abroad in the biggest mass exodus for 60 years. Figures released by Germany’s Federal Statistics Office showed that the number of Germans emigrating rose to 155,290 last year – the highest number since the country’s reunification in 1990 – which equalled levels last experienced in the 1940s during the chaotic aftermath of the Second World War. . . . Fed up with comparatively poor job prospects at home – where unemployment is as high as 17 per cent in some regions – as well as high taxes and bureaucracy, thousands of Germans have upped sticks for Austria and Switzerland, or emigrated to the United States.” Seems like the more socialist the country, the more its talented citizens tend to go elsewhere.