40% of Portugal’s graduates emigrate

The Portuguese are more highly qualified than 20 years ago, but lose 40% of graduates who leave the country to work overseas in better paid jobs.

This is the conclusion of the Business Roundtable Portugal which has launched a platform that enables Portugal to be compared with other European countries in terms of GDP, and salaries, taxes, and a whole bunch of other indicators.
The challenge now, says the Business Roundtable, is to create the conditions to stem the flow of professionals leaving Portugal and keep home-grown talent at home.
The challenge was thrown down on Tuesday by Vasco Mello, the president of the Business Roundtable Portugal (BRP), and by Nuno Amado, a board member of the same association, and chairman of the bank BPC, both of whom presented a new platform that enables Portugal to be compared to other European countries in key indicators such as taxes, GDP, salaries, and competitiveness.
“We cannot have a situation in which 40% of our graduates go abroad”,” said Vasco de Mello, who explained that while experience overseas could be a good thing, opportunities and incentives needed to be provided to encourage Portuguese graduates to stay in Portugal.
Vítor Ribeirinho, CEO of KMPG said: “We are reducing the capacity to retain the best. The government and indeed anyone needs to understand that something needs to be done with regard to young people. If we don’t we run the risk of them starting their careers overseas.”
Ribeirinho says the salaries are an important condition for young people but also thinks hubs should be created outside large urban centres but close to talent, KPMG has just launched a new centre in Évora.
The calls for action to prevent Portugal’s brain drain were made at the presentation of a new online platform that compares Portugal with various other European countries ‘Compare to Grow’ that have 30 indicators in four key areas: global performance, people, companies, and the State.