Wanted Abroad, Technology Professionals Are Leaving Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Five invitations for recruiting procedures per week, usually come through LinkedIn for software engineer Lucas Albuquerque, 27 years old.

Most of them are sent by European Information Technology (IT) companies, which, like the Brazilian companies, are suffering from a shortage of labor.

Given the low supply of skilled workers in the area, countries such as Germany, Sweden, and Poland have opened their doors to Brazilians, and the companies are paying for tickets and housing for the family of workers in the first months after the move.

Living with his wife in Poland for two years, Albuquerque already bought an apartment, saw his son born in a hospital where the nurses do not speak English – nor he Polish – and changed jobs.

“I had never thought of Poland, but the company found me (on the Internet) and then I discovered that, while Germany focuses more startups, Poland has stronger companies, which gave me the security to move.

Albuquerque has already worked alongside two other Brazilians in a team of only ten professionals. “When I got here, I could tell who almost all Brazilians were. Now, it’s no longer possible. The IT WhatsApp group of Brazilians in Krakow counts 207 people.”

Brazil’s high rates of violence, the lack of quality public services, and the difficulty in developing cutting-edge technologies, are among the factors that have led IT Brazilians to leave the country. As a consequence, there is an increase in the distance between Brazil and the most advanced countries.

In Sweden, for instance, the number of visas granted to Brazilians working in the area increased from 15 in 2014 to 126 this year. Of all the new visas in 2014, 19 percent were for IT professionals. Today, this number reaches 36 percent.

One of the most sought after destinations, Germany gave 2,851 work visas to Brazilians last year – in 2014 there were 904. The German embassy in Brazil does not separate this data by area but estimates that in 2018, 1,500 Brazilians were working with science and technology in the country.

“There is a lack of talent in the area. And the Brazilian talent that comes to Europe is usually older,” says Portuguese Pedro Oliveira, co-founder of Landing.jobs, a website that connects employers in Europe and technology workers. On the platform, Brazilians are the second largest group of users, with 15 percent of the total, behind only the Portuguese, with 30 percent.

“As this is a time of market expansion, most companies never stop hiring. Those that have the structure to bring in people from abroad choose this path,” says software engineer Felipe Ribeiro Barbosa, 34.

After seven years in Sweden, Barbosa is now in the United States, working at Netflix. He moved to Sweden in 2012 and was the only Brazilian in the company where he worked: “Then, in 2015, during the crisis in Brazil, the influx of Brazilians was impressive. The company even hired a Brazilian recruiter.” In 2018, when Barbosa left Stockholm, there were already 30 Brazilians in the company.

According to a survey by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the USA is the preferred destination of IT Brazilians. Of 131 professionals heard by the consultancy here, 63 percent said they were willing to move to the country. Canada, Portugal, and Germany come next.

The European countries, however, end up beating the US for simplifying the stay of foreigners. It is common practice for the spouse of the hired professional to also obtain a working visa – which is not the case in the USA.

In Europe, most countries also do not require the worker to have completed higher education. This is the case of Daniel Rodrigues da Costa Filho, 37 years old – 23 of them as a programmer. He studied Computer Science, but dropped out, which did not harm him in the selection process. He was only required to prove that he had experience in the area when he applied for a visa at the German consulate.

Daniel works in a startup but has already passed through N26, one of the largest digital banks in Europe. “Changing jobs is simple here. The demand (on the part of companies) is great and, with Brexit, there are many companies coming to Berlin”.

Salary vs career

A higher salary in a stronger currency is not usually the main attraction in Europe for Brazilians in the Information Technology area. There are cases in which the worker’s purchasing power even decreases after the change, which is offset by the opportunity of being in a large innovation center and developing professionally.

A survey by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), conducted in partnership with the recruitment solutions company The Network, shows that, for Brazilian IT professionals, the most valued factor when choosing a job is career development. The salary ranks eighth on the list of priorities for Brazilians. In the global average, it is in fifth place.

Daniel had been thinking of moving to Europe since 2010. “I wanted to be part of the development of technology,” he says. Three years ago, he traded São Paulo for Berlin, in Germany, despite losing purchasing power. “My feeling was that, in my area, everything was happening outside Brazil”.

In Norway for a little over a year and after seven years in Sweden, engineer Andressa Kalil, 37, emphasizes aspects such as safety, good public services and job opportunities as key factors that brought her to Europe. “The leading IT companies are outside Brazil, and it is in them that we have more opportunities to learn. Brazil is lagging far behind what is already developed”.

Josiane Ferreira, from Ceará, who has been in Stockholm for four years, also recalls that, in Sweden, there is a great concern with gender equality. “In Brazil, when working with IT it is common to be the only woman in the team. Here, the issue of gender is one of the companies’ priorities”.

Above average

BCG’s survey also shows that 87 percent of IT Brazilians are willing to move from country to country to work. The number is higher than that recorded among Brazilians from other areas (73 percent) and the global average of IT workers (67 percent).

Given this predisposition of workers to leave Brazil, local companies need to retain their employees, offering training and teaching the culture of the company, says Luiz Comazzetto, vice president and partner of recruitment consulting Fesa. “If you don’t handle the employee like a star, he’ll leave you at the first moment.”

Companies also need to adapt to the way they pay and ensure quality of life for their employees, says the consultant. Freeing employees to work from home, with flexible working hours, is crucial, he says. Hiring workers by project, allowing them to work for more than one company, is also a possibility.

“Today IT staff choose where they will work. The only way to hold on to this crowd is to get closer to what foreign companies are offering,” Comazzetto adds.

According to Comazzetto, there are hubs in Brazil where companies are more advanced in this transformation, such as Recife (PE), Florianópolis (SC), Campinas (SP) and Pelotas (RS). “In these places, companies have already understood the changes. You take a worker from Recife, who goes to the beach before working and has a good quality of life, he will hardly want to leave”.

A professor of Leadership and People at Dom Cabral Foundation, Paulo Almeida, highlights that, despite the current difficulties, IT professionals should be aware of the potential for market growth in Brazil. “In Europe, careers tend to be more stagnant. Brazil is a continental country, with a lot of potential.”

Source: Estado de S. Paulo.

LatAm Markets: Live Signals → — real-time movers, turnover leaders and FX across Latin America.