RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The number of Brazilians living in Portugal increased by 43 percent in 2019 and reached a record of 150,864. In 2018 there were 105,423, which was 23 percent more than in 2017.
Over the past 12 months, the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) granted one-third of all new permits to people from Brazil, representing the largest foreign community. The figures were released by the daily newspaper “Público”.
Brazilian immigrants in this new wave of applications for residence in Portugal have an extremely highly qualified professional profile.
They leave their jobs in Brazil in search of a better quality of life, move as a family and often prefer to earn lower salaries in exchange for their family’s safety.
Among the professional categories that grew the most was that of Brazilian doctors. The figure has doubled since the Portuguese Medical Association began classifying new members by country of origin in 2003. There were 388 that year and so far there has been a 100.2 percent increase to 777.
This is a planned effort to try to fill the vacant positions left by Portuguese doctors who leave the country in search of better conditions and salaries. And they are not only Brazilians in this professional diaspora: Portugal now has the largest number of foreign doctors in the National Health System (SNS), with approximately 2,000 – half of the workforce.
Once the equivalency and confirmation process has been completed, professionals are registered in the association which may authorize applicants to work as general practitioners if they have worked continually for the preceding three years.
In the public sector, the basic salary is between EUR2,000 (R$9,300) and EUR2,300, which gives Brazilians the chance of a better standard of living than in Brazil due to the lower cost of living in Portugal. And they can still work as freelancers, providing outsourced services, or use the country as a gateway to Europe.
Agencies and law firms handling the bureaucracy for transferring doctors have seen their clients increase in recent years. They say they seek to improve their knowledge and escape violence.
Portugal is currently home to 580,000 immigrants in all. It is the first time in the country’s history that the number of foreign residents exceeds the half-million barrier.