"A young man with a degree has the world at his feet," according to Portugal’s Finance Minister, Maria Luís Albuquerque.
The minister was speaking at the presentation ceremony of a new publication on Tras-os-Montes and EU funds written by the MEP, José Manuel Fernandes.
"If we want to live in a globalised world without borders, and we want to give opportunities to our young people, we have to face in a more nuanced way the phenomenon of the movement of young people looking for opportunities throughout the world."
Maria Luís Albuquerque said that that young people have more opportunities than ever before and that we must reassess the trend of the young wishing to emigrate.
"We must also realise that if young people today have particular difficulties because they cannot access employment, as we have too high a level of youth unemployment, it also is true that young people today have more opportunities than the young of past generations," said Albuquerque.
"We live in a Union of 28 countries where there is freedom of movement, where any Portuguese citizen can move to any country of the European Union. We began to teach English to our young at age five, we give them higher courses in English, we participate in the Erasmus programme, the doors to the world are certainly open to them and if they want to make choices out there they should do so," she continued.
Maria Luís Albuquerque also said that when she travels abroad, people from large companies say they have excellent Portuguese professionals working for them in all areas – as engineers, as economists and in finance."
In March 2014, Portugal's President Cavaco Silva took the opportunity of a series of farm visits across the Algarve to encourage young unemployed people to go and work on farms for a bit of experience rather than emigrate - and risk getting a job in tune with what they have been studying.
"Agriculture is today one of the sectors that can help Portugal enjoy a rapid recovery," said the statesman.
The President challenged young people to start working on farms, saying "we need to convince younger people that this can be a profitable activity and that instead of going abroad to try to find a job, they should experiment in agriculture."
The combination of people leaving Portugal and not many turning up, places the country in a difficult long term position as those leaving could have been productive taxpayers and of those returning, many are retirees.
"Portugal is approaching the same situation as the least developed countries of eastern Europe," said Rui Pena Pires, a researcher from Lisbon University who report last March recognised that the current emigration situation is not new, as in the 1960s Portugal had more emigration than immigration.
Rui Pena Pires stressed that in the 1960s, emigration was partially offset by the repatriation of Portuguese from Africa in the '70s when over half a million people returned to the country in a year and a half, after the 1974 revolution.
Currently the situation is now more concerning than in the 60s as not many Portuguese are returning from overseas, finding little reason to do so.
The researcher explained that "everything depends on the resumption of economic growth in Portugal” but warned that if this takes too long, "it becomes very difficult to correct the demographic deficit."
“At the moment the balance is negative” said Pena Pires, who estimates that there currently is a 90,000 to 95,000 net annual outflow from the country, a figure which should please the Finance Minister as it keeps the unemployment figures down and there is no need to pay any benefits to departing workers.
The serious flaw in Albuquerque's speech this weekend was that by encouraging the young to leave, thus giving the Passos Coelho an effortless reduction in the number of unemployed, the long term affects are diasterous with too few taxpayers paying for a huge cadre of retirees.
Comments
yes but FM Albuquerque ! How about no longer teaching the Portuguese youngsters that the 'English' are bad people ?
That it is racist to not treat the english 'nicely' and that one day, many years in the future it will be illegal in Portugal. That robbing and cheating them is a bad thing - not a national sport second only to football.
The difference nowadays is that the birthrate is not as buoyant as it used to be. Historically it was not the Alentejo, but the northern provinces of Portugal which supplied the high birthrate and the subsequent emigration, because the farms were not big enough to support the population. So as always, President Cavaco Silva is only half right. Agriculture is a strength in this country, but employment in agriculture is not to be found in the machine friendly Alentejo, but rather in the small farms of the north.