I believe part of the problem in countries where a large ammount of the population emigrates is a vicious circle that forms under such conditions. Lots of people see better wages etc abroad so the emigrate. They are no longer in the workforce so temporarily they cut unemployment. Problem is they can't create jobs either and all their production is lost from the economy. So basically as time goes by the country will become more and more dependant on money from abroad because none of its industries are growing even while the population is. In addition people will be less and less tempted by local wage levels as the foreign economies will be growing therefore wages and prices probably rising.

Now, in a place like Ireland, once they reversed the trend they were in a very good situation. Because they'd had a brain drain for years, they'd been doing everything they could to get people to university in order to have enough doctors engineers etc. When all the qualified emigrants came back- (also those who'd trained up while abroad), they ended up with a highly trained work force a lot of whom had money to invest in companies etc.

The fact that lots of Poles came over to work in the construction industry recently shows that the old stereotype of the Irishman with the hod isn't necessarily true. (Although in fairness the Irish construction industry has mushroomed to a stupid size and is due a serious knock as soon as house prices drop I think.) Maybe alleviated if the government actually tries to get schools and roads built for all the new housing areas that have bugger all except houses in them.

Sorry, drifting ever more off-topic. I'll stop now while the complete bollocks level is only marginally higher than the informed statement level.