A growing number of Portuguese nationals, particularly the most skilled, are opting for Nordic countries, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, as destinations for work, an Emigration Report, presented on Wednesday in Lisbon, shows.
The Emigration Report for 2021 was presented Wednesday at the foreign ministry’s office.
Sweden, Denmark and Norway have “an increasing attraction for Portuguese emigration”, Rui Pena, a researcher at the Emigration Observatory, responsible for the report, said at the end of the presentation.
In his speech, Pena highlighted the case of the Netherlands – the seventh most sought-after destination – which registers a growth in Portuguese emigration, with 3,406 entries of Portuguese in 2021.
“The Netherlands has a relatively dynamic labour market and this has allowed this more qualified Portuguese emigration to take place. It also has the advantage of being a country where a large part of the qualified work can be done in English,” he explained.
The researcher noted that emigration to Denmark did not even decrease during the COVID-19 pandemic when there was a sharp drop in Portuguese and global emigration.
During the report’s presentation, Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho referred to this option for countries that are not traditional destinations of Portuguese emigration as “a relatively new phenomenon”, at the same time that “there is a ‘stock’ of old emigration that remains more or less stable around two million emigrants”.
Asked about who chooses to emigrate, Gomes Cravinho said that they are “of all kinds”.
“There are more qualified Portuguese, with PhDs, who tend to go more to the United States and others, with fewer qualifications, who go everywhere”, said Gomes Cravinho.
“Emigration is a centuries-old phenomenon of the Portuguese reality”, he added, stressing the benefits of experiences abroad that many young Portuguese have today.
“They are temporary emigrants, who go for two, four years and return. We should value this because it enriches our society and the young people who have this experience, in the same way, it enriches us, Portuguese society, to receive people from other origins”, he said.
For his part, the secretary of state for Portuguese communities, Paulo Cafôfo, drew attention to the mutations of Portuguese emigration.
“Fortunately it is happening. The emigrants leaving [Portugal] today are not the same as those who left in the 60s or 70s,” he said.
According to the report, around 60,000 Portuguese emigrated in 2021, 15,000 more than the previous year, in a “remarkable recovery” of exits after the sharp drop in 2020.
In 2021, the UK led the destinations of Portuguese emigrants (12,000 entries), followed by Spain (8,000), Switzerland (8,000), France (6,000) and Germany (6,000).
The report indicates that Switzerland was, in 2020, the country where more Portuguese emigrants acquired nationality. More recent data prepared by the Observatory of Emigration shows an increase in the number of acquisitions of British nationality in 2021, catapulting the UK to first place.
An initiative of the office of the secretary of state for Portuguese communities, the Emigration Report is based on data collected by the Emigration Observatory, a research centre of Iscte – Lisbon University Institute.
(Sandra Moutinho | Lusa.pt)
Source: euractiv.com
