The number of skilled professionals leaving the country went up by 62 percent last year, according to a report by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).
Doctors, engineers, accountants, teachers and managers joined the exodus of skilled South Africans working abroad in 2003. Last year, according to Stats SA, 4 316 people emigrated, compared with 2 689 in 2002. In December, 934 professionals left the country for greener pastures while 508 settled in South Africa, the majority from Nigeria, Britain, China, Zimbabwe and Pakistan.
The report released earlier this month said South Africans leaving the country in December headed to Britain, Australia, the United States, New Zealand and Namibia.
Anton Lourens, the secretary-general of the Public Servants Association, said the figures were disturbing as they showed that South Africans from a variety of professions were leaving the country in large numbers. "People are leaving because there is a perception that we have a high crime rate and professionals know that they can easily get jobs overseas," he said.
Lourens said it was of great concern when medical practitioners - who studied for a minimum of seven years and were often subsidised by the state - were allowed to go.
The report said 192 medical practitioners left in 2003, compared with 117 in 2002. It costs a minimum of R120 000 to train doctors over seven years.
Teachers have also left in droves to work in Britain and the US, with 666 leaving last year, compared with 410 in 2002; while 736 people in the accounting profession emigrated last year, up from 529 in 2002.
The department of labour said this week that skilled professionals in short supply included scientists and researchers, managers, accountants, engineers, medical practitioners and artisans.
Solidarity, the Pretoria-based trade union, said the country loses R800 million annually in lost tax contributions from people who had emigrated. Flip Buys, the union's spokesperson, said 11 000 people left the country in 1999, adding that figures were obtained from a study conducted by the University of South Africa's bureau of market research.
Sechaba Nkosi, the spokesperson for the South African Revenue Service, said the statistics were not based on anything substantive, and that they confused the loss to the gross domestic product with the loss to the tax base.
Rej Brijraj, the chief executive officer of the South African Council for Educators, said the council had no statistics on the number of teachers working overseas, but estimated that there were about 10 000.
Pieter Martins, the spokesperson for the South African Teachers Union, said advertisements were being placed in large numbers for teaching posts, and that many students left for overseas teaching jobs immediately after graduating.
The Democratic Nursing Association of South Africa and the South African Nursing Council could not provide details of members working abroad, although the latter confirmed it was requested by overseas hospitals to verify qualifications of nurses before they emigrated.
Phadi Lehohla, the statistician-general, said since 1999 the number of immigrants had been less than the number of emigrants and that the gap between the two was slowly closing.