If anyone ever really thought it had gone away, PwC’s 14th Annual Global Survey confirmed that the ’war for talent’ is back with a vengeance.

Most chief executives surveyed said they feared that driven by the booming emerging economies in Asia and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), talent shortages would constrain their company’s growth.

Many of the CEOs are backing global mobility of talent as an answer, with a 50% growth in international assignments expected by 2020.

However, if CEOs believe that moving talent round the globe is a simple or universal solution, then recruiters at the recent Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Recruitment and Talent Management Conference told a different, more nuanced story.

Thomas Hedegaard Rasmussen, senior general manager group HR at Maersk Group, flatly contradicts the notion that expats are the answer. For example, he says the company, which used to send a lot of people to China, had reduced this by around 70% since 2007.

However, if CEOs believe that moving talent round the globe is a simple or universal solution, recruiters at a recent CIPD conference told a more nuanced story

Rasmussen says that apart from the sheer numbers of candidates, Chinese nationals “know the local market, the government, and the local networks”.

He says any international mobility is likely to be in reverse, from China to Maersk’s head office in Denmark. “We only move people abroad for two reasons: either for their development or because they can transfer their knowledge.”

Interestingly, Rasmussen adds that expats are expected to find a successor for their role in the destination country. The PwC survey highlights this as a trend, suggesting that recruiters in Maersk may be ahead of the global CEO curve.

Where the PwC survey may be more in line with recruiters’ experiences is in the booming emerging markets of Asia.

Joost Kreulen, head of Asian operations for Empresaria Group, says the market has gone from a client-driven to a candidatedriven market with “a huge shortage of talent” in white-collar professional jobs.

Following the global recession that saw international companies cutting back on the use of expensive expats, Kreulen predicts a big increase in opportunities for expats looking for a career outside the UK.

That said, it’s not clear cut. The growth of international colleges in India and China means that those who used to study in the UK and the US, and then stayed on to build their careers, are more likely to take up “Ivy League jobs” in their own countries.

There are other factors at work too. According to Nimai Swaroop, group head of employer branding and marketing at RBS, a rise in national pride in China and India means that nationals are increasingly staying at home, where they can contribute to the development of their own economies.

Nigeria is different again, says Chinedu Duru, Pedersen & Partners’ country manager. Duru says that due to the relative strength of the Nigerian economy, and the higher costs of expats, international firms prefer to hire locals. It is only if local people or members of Nigeria’s global diaspora are not available that companies fall back on expats, he says, with skilled technical jobs being a case in point.

Hassan Jalil, a partner in international executive search firm Hunter and Chase, reiterates the importance of the state of a given country’s economy and the health of specific sectors. For example, he says the flow of talent from the US to the UK has diminished. However, the relatively buoyant financial services is an exception, he says.

A country’s internal politics can also have an influence on the flow of international talent. For example, in UAE, the policy of ’Emiratisation’, which aims to get Emirate nationals into jobs rather than foreigners and expats is having a “significant effect”, according to Jalil. A similar policy is being adopted in other countries in the region, such as Bahrain and Qatar.

“A number of companies are trying to reduce the number of expats,” says Jalil. He adds that because many organisations are state owned, this pressure is hard to resist.

If CEOs think that simply moving talent around the world is the answer, they may be in for a rude awakening.