Laurent Perren/Unsplash
Laurent Perren/Unsplash

The Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional or IEFP) is going to start posting job offers in Portugal abroad. The announcement was made by the Portuguese Minister for Economy, Pedro Siza Vieira, who stated that the aim is to counter the shortage of manual labour that currently exists in the national market, attracting human resources from abroad to work in Portugal.

"The lack of manpower is the main concern for businesses in all regions and in almost all sectors," said the minister at a hearing for the Economic Commission last week, promising that the socialist government of António Costa is working hard to attract more workers from outside Portugal to bridge this gap.

One of the measures put forward is for the IEFP to "advertise offers from companies in Portugal," he told MEPs, according to the Lusa press association. At the end of the hearing, in statements to the same news agency, Siza Vieira explained that "the idea is to make job offers reach a foreign audience", either to places "where there is a concentration of Portuguese communities", or to other places where "it is possible to find labour to come and work in Portugal".

According to the minister, this does not mean opening IEFP branches outside the country, and he didn’t give many more details about how this programme will work.

Green light for work visas in Portugal

On the other hand, in this same parliamentary hearing the minister said that the government is working to "simplify visa procedures" to make it easier for expats to work in Portugal. The minister gave the example of the flexible ‘tech visa’ program, which is designed to attract skilled workers.

Siza Vieira also said that the increase in wages that has been observed in recent years is not yet enough and that more needs to be done to retain and attract talent. "If six or seven years ago Portuguese people left because they didn't have a job, today they continue to leave, although much less so, because they don't find working conditions and salaries adequate to their qualifications and fair aspirations."

He added: "Either we manage to find a way for our businesses to treat our human resources properly, namely in terms of remuneration, or we will be faced with the unavailability of human resources".

Another way of getting a visa in Portugal is the country’s famous Golden Visa scheme, whereby expats are granted residence status in return for investment in Portuguese businesses and real estate.