What is the state of today’s job market in Portugal?

In a nutshell, the job market in Portugal is like this: high unemployment (most of it long-term); workers, although better qualified than in the recent past, still far from European average standards; so-so productivity (around half of the European average); almost a million people working with successive short-term contracts, or on “false green receipts”; extremely low salaries all round – and particularly disproportionate to the job specification.

A quarter of all unemployed workers have been out of the job market for more than two years, says the study, and the chances of them working again are “scarce”.

Contrary to what happens in most European countries, working “on the black market” in Portugal brings more money in that working legally. Although it’s practically impossible to say how many workers are “illegal”, one can be sure that the majority of them are “unemployed” people, legal immigrants, and people registered as working for themselves. People who hire this kind of worker say they do so because they are cheaper, quicker, and better.

Regarding professional training, the authors of the study concede a “lacuna between the training given, and the requirements/ capacity of the relevant job market”. In other words, a lot of people can’t get work after frequenting training courses, and end up subscribing to other courses in order to receive social security handouts at the end of the month.

Between January and November 2009, 281 599 people took part in professional work training courses – but throughout 2009, more than half the 123.000 job vacancies remained unfilled.

Meantime, a university degree still stands for something (the level of unemployment among graduates stands at around 80 per cent, but last year it was the only kind of qualification where unemployment actually fell) – but it’s still uncertain what kind of employment will be successful, particularly because qualified workers are the most flexible employees these days, and subject to the most job-insecurity.

According to the study, 2 in 10 people between the ages of 25 and 34 years old – all of them with higher education – are working in professions demanding “lesser qualifications” than those they’ve achieved, thus creating what the study terms as “over qualification”. Graduates are also more likely to be found in seasonal jobs, without written contracts.

On average, the Portuguese spend 38.2 hours a week at their work-places, In 2008, every hour worked in Portugal brought in a little less than half the wage (55.5%) of the average of Europe’s 15.

Notwithstanding the low level of qualifications in general among workers and business people, the study blames the status quo on the fact that businesses work with minimal contact with seats of learning, and the parallel economy. The study also concedes that state bureaucracy and an incompetent legal system doesn’t help.

Men continue to earn more than women, and the 20 per cent of people with the highest wages take home six times more money than the 20 per cent with the lowest wages. Statistics show Portugal to be one of the European countries with the most unequal distribution of wealth.

Far from highlighting solutions, the study predicts disaster. If everything continues the way things are, Portugal will be a country even more compromised and unequal compared to its EU partners. Within the next ten years, the majority of the working population (64%) will have low qualifications (compared to an EU average of 16.2%), and only a minority (17.6%) will have more skills than necessary (against an EU average of 33%).