The UK continues to be the top destination for Portuguese – mostly nurses and doctors – looking for a better life.
According to Portugal’s Emigration Observatory (EO), 30,546 Portuguese enrolled as workers in the UK in 2014 – slightly above the 30,121 in 2013.
Data shows the number has also doubled compared to 2011, when the troika first entered Portugal (15,020).
Most of the émigrés work in the “health sector”, the majority as “nurses, doctors and dentists”.
Jornal de Notícias carries a report today (July 17) detailing the increasing number of nurses who are fleeing Portugal to look for a better life elsewhere, especially in Britain.
In the last six-and-a-half years, Portugal’s nurses association has received nearly 13,000 requests from professionals seeking the necessary paperwork to allow them to work abroad.
“Civil construction, cleaning and commerce” are other sectors that continue to attract thousands of Portuguese to Britain.
In its short report, the EO adds that thousands of the émigrés are people from countries like Goa in India, who have a Portuguese passport but have never set foot inside the country.
