It is no secret that we have a lot of Malaysian actuarial talents working overseas. In fact sometimes I joke that our country is the largest exporter of actuarial talents! So how serious is the actuarial brain drain problem? Until now there is no official statistics.

I attempt to answer this question by basing on some facts collected and making certain actuarial assumptions, a natural thing for an actuary to do I guess. Before I reveal the results, I invite you to take an actuarial guess of the ratio of Malaysian actuarial workforce residing in Malaysia to those residing outside Malaysia. 80:20? 50:50? Take your guess before scrolling down for the answer.

The Singapore Actuarial Society (SAS) in its recently published Annual Report 2014/2015 has a pie chart that shows its membership by country of origin. Malaysia makes up of 28% of SAS' membership. Based on SAS' total membership of 976, this translates to 273 Malaysians.

A quick check on the Actuarial Society of Malaysia (ASM)'s website shows that its membership as at 31 December 2014 stood at 708. I make an assumption that 95% of its membership are Malaysians, which translates to 673 Malaysians. Further I estimate that there are 150 to 250 Malaysians with actuarial qualifications working outside Malaysia and Singapore. We are now all set to answer the question I posed earlier.

Based on the above, I conclude that we have a 40-45% actuarial brain drain problem. So, are you surprised with the results?

***You may also enjoy reading our blog on How Secure is the Insurance Company's CEO Job***