Portugal’s employable nationals are leaving the country as fast as easyJet can carry them with another 30,000 heading to the UK last year to seek a better quality of life than in their homeland where unemployment and low wages make staying an unattractive proposition.
Most left to go to jobs and the total is 50% up on the 2012 figure, according to official UK records.
Despite the high total figure, many of those who emigrated to the UK only had seasonal and temporary jobs but these figures still put Portugal in the top five for Social Security registrations in the UK, behind Poland (111,000), Spain (51,000) Italy (44,000) and India (30,000).
The UK is recording record figures, in total about 532,000 people headed there last year of which half originate from within the eurozone. This pattern has led PM David Cameron to call for entry restrictions into Britain of citizens who qualify for the largesse of the UK welfare state.
In the past two years Portugal has lost 120,000 nationals a year to emigration, the vast majority of whom are willing, able and trained workers with a desire to better themselves and their families by working in northern Europe.
Portugal's government has adhered to its Troika-inspired austerity programme that has accellerated domestic unemployment under the mantra of 'competitiveness equals low wages' while suggesting these lost workers will come back when things are better.
Had there not been a mass desertion from the homeland, Portugal's already high unemployment figure would present an even more depressing picture. The UK registered figure of 30,000 inbound Portuguese will not include those who have travelled and found cash-in-hand work in the UK's parallel economy.
