Is the boom in migration good for sending and recipient countries?

The total number of expats in the world is already estimated at about 200m. That’s only 3% of the world’s population, so there is still potential for growth.
Rich countries, who are in an economic boom, need more workers than they have. So they hope that outsiders will keep coming. And they will! For some, there is a strong incentive to work abroad, since their income could be the fivefold of the income at home. The problem in poor and middle-income countries is that there is a chronic shortage of skilled workers. This “brain drain” is mostly to rich countries. But these poorer countries should realise that emigration of these skilled workers is a consequence rather than a course of its problems. For example nurses in Malawi emigrate massively, because their salaries are too low, or often not paid. What the government should do is managing this problem, for example by raising the salaries of the nurses.

Jana Jonckheere
Source: http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=10286197