War’s economic fallout: A tech-worker exodus from three nations
Yuliya remembers vividly the day Russia invaded Ukraine. She was skiing with her fiancé in Germany, booked to return to her home in Belarus. An opponent of the war, she wondered if she should go back to one of the few nations actively supporting the invasion.
“It was like crazy, crazy emotion, day and night, sitting at the table and checking the flight,” recalls Yuliya, who like many people in this story does not want her last name used for fear of government retribution. “I understood that I can’t go back, because it’s not safe.”
But that meant leaving behind her parents, an apartment full of possessions, and her rescue dog named Amy.
The couple decided she should shelter in Poland instead. Her employer, a Western information technology firm, had already agreed she could work remotely from Warsaw. She would wait a week to see how things turned out.
From Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, a steady trickle of highly educated migrants or refugees has turned into a flood. Tens of thousands of often technically trained workers are fleeing war (in Ukraine) and political repression or the fallout from
