booboo1

In my daughter's class alone there are

1 kid has left for NZ

1 leaving for Florida

1 leaving for Aus (Booboo family)

1 leaving for Dubai

1 who'se family are looking into leaving for Spain

booboo

zen

No one left in her class then booboo..?

anya4oz

Tsk tsk, obviously not familiar with UK class sizes.

Only 57 left in her class, more like ....

Anya.

Servant24kids

My daughter's school has just lost one to Oz and another leaves shortly for NZ. My son has lost a classmate to France.

Wherever I mention our plans I get the "oooh, you are so lucky" and get the third degree on how to get in, so a lot would like to leave!

countyfan

Our daughter - age 14 - has recently lost 2 friends to USA, 2 to Australia, and 2 to New Zealand. We are planning on Australia.
I also know a few people at work who are SERIOUSLY contemplating making the move. I think you could be right - more people are thinking of the opportunities offered abroad.

joecan

There is indeed something of a mass exodus. Did you hear the parliamentary enquiry that they're holding in Australia regarding the diaspora of young australians living and working abroad? Lower pay, lack of recognition and restricted job opportunities are some of the reasons given so far to the enquiry as to why so many of australia's working age adults are working abroad.

anya4oz

I think one big factor is the rise of cheap air fares in the last 15 years or so. It means that many more people travel to exotic far-flung places now, and decide they like them. Then they realise that they could actually live there.... the rest as they say is history...

All these 'get a new life' progs on TV don't help, either

Anya.

anya4oz

Indeed. I worked with many Aussies in the City of London, over here for just those reasons. One interesting commonality, though, was they all planned to go home (and missed home a lot, too). Many of them wanted to make enough cash here in the UK to pay off the Oz mortgage. The only one I can think of who plans to stay is a lovely lass who fell madly in love with a Londoner (aaaahhhhh!).

Grass is always greener, hmmm....?

Anya.

HiddenPaw

Interesting cos I have 3 Aussie friends in the UK who are all here to stay. One cites his reasons for staying as he enjoys life better here and doesn't like the isolation of Oz. Another Aussie family are arriving in the UK on 26th - they lived in UK for 3 years and have been back in melbourne for 2 years - now they are coming back over for good (both of them Aussies along with their 3 kids). They returned to Melbourne as they thought they wanted to bring their children up in Australia - now they have decided that the Uk is where they want to be.

I guess it all depends what you want out of life. At least that's 3 new kids to fill the empty desks at school!

carryon

Exodus indeed!
1. Friends of ours gone to oz
2. Wifes workmate just emigrated to Perth
3. Last year my workmate left for France, and another one is off soon.
4.2 of my customers are off this year, 1 to France and 1 to Spain.
And we are looking at oz. Is Britain really that bad? A survey the other day stated that 1/4 of people would leave these shores if at all possible, now that is a mass exodus, or has it already begun?....

anya4oz

Yay.....! and 3 Aussie kids for the school cricket team!

Anya.

Watt Dabney

It was the same in our kids school

2 families left for NZ (1 was us)

1 family left for OZ

1 family left for Spain

1 family planning for NZ

1 family about to leave for US about now


Paula

HiddenPaw

It seems to be part of human nature to think that the grass is always greener - that's probably why so many people say they want to emigrate. They think the UK is the only country with problems and dream of utopia. Just look at the number of people here who say they are going to Australia to escape this and that, without stopping to think that the same problems exist there too.

When I told people in the UK that I was going back to the UK most of them said "you must be mad to leave Australia". 90% of them had never even been to Australia so how on earth could they pass judgement that Australia must offer more than the UK!!? It's in their minds that it is an idyllic country.

Grayling

When I stayed with my son in Brisbane three years ago he shared a house with two australians.They all worked in the Aerospace industry.
It seems that their ambition was to live in England and this was apparently quite common among young professionals.(they were all engineers).

London was seen as some sort of place to aim for.
Mostly they had never been but they wanted out.

Seems the other man's grass is Greener wherever you live.

G

evila

While cleaning my closet on christmas, I found a photography of the people that studied with me at the uni (small group of 12). After a while I realized that next christmas none of us would be in our homeland.

At least we have a place to stay in many countries :-)

Cheers....