Giving Compass' Take:

• Montreal is working hard to battle brain drain, from making their employees feel valued to investing capital into startups.

• What happens to other cities that are not taking the same precautions as Montreal? What is the economic impact of brain drain?

• Read about how rural towns in the U.S. are fighting brain drain by building community. 

Lunchtime yoga has just ended in the Chill Room, which is carpeted with AstroTurf and furnished with beach, beanbag and Adirondack chairs, a hammock, a playful mural of the city skyline and some potted plants.

It’s a typical day at GSoft, a technology company whose meteoric rise from its founding in 2006 has required a constant supply of workers — and the over-the-top amenities increasingly needed to recruit and keep them.

Now many of the places that are finding it increasingly challenging to attract scarce talent are turning their attention to preventing it from leaving in the first place, responding with near panic to the suddenly rediscovered phenomenon of brain drain.

That’s long been a challenge in Montreal, which has a wealth of universities but loses many of its graduates to Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, among other places. It also means this city and the surrounding province have gotten an earlier start confronting brain drain than most other states and cities on both sides of the border, trying solutions to get its graduates to stay and investigating why it happens and what can stop it.

The province has already taken measures such as providing capital for startups, teaching coding as early as kindergarten and requiring students in some fields to stay put after graduating as a condition of their financial aid.

“We definitely are talking a lot about that,” said GSoft’s Pradon. “The government is working really closely with the private sector, realizing what they’re losing when people move away. It’s costing money. And people are leaving with knowledge.”

He added: “Other cities may be realizing that they’re losing people, but they haven’t put the resources into stopping that. Montreal doesn’t have a choice. We’re a city of services. It’s a question of survival.”

Read the full article about brain drain by Jon Marcus at The Hechinger Report