11-05-2015
Considering the in Portugal very discussed "brain drain", the Faculty of Science and Technology of the New University of Lisbon (FCT-UNL) decided to make a survey to all graduate students from 2010/11 to 2013/14, in order to know the true extent of this commented phenomenon.Professor Graça Martinho, Deputy Director of FCT, wrote a chronicle in the weekly newspaper "Vida Económica" in which she released the results.
The survey had a response rate of 33% (942 of de2838 registered graduates answered the questionnaire). The results allow concluding that 12% from these graduates are abroad. Of these, about 17% study (most part of them doctorates), 72% work and 11% are looking for work. The reasons that led them to leave Portugal, are of various kinds: 45% always planned to leave the country, with or without crisis, 5% left Portugal because the companies where they worked have internationalized their areas of activity, 25% of them already were working in Portugal, but found better offers abroad and, finally, 25% indicated that they did not find work in Portugal or the available offers did not match their expectations. Concerning a future return to Portugal, 9% responded that they had not at all intention to return, 68% that, for now, was not in his plans to return and 23% said they want to return as soon as possible.
The professional areas with more graduates working abroad are civil engineering and computer engineering, for completely different reasons. While in the first case this fact is due to the national employment crisis in the construction sector in the second case it is due to the willingness of graduates to work in large multinational companies in the area of information technologies.
From the graduates who are studying or working in Portugal (78%), about 25% said that they intended to emigrate as soon as possible, in search of better working conditions, and the rest expressed their intention to remain in the country.
