The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

Sounds quite similar to Italy. About politics: you can loathe it all you want, but unfortunately, you'll need to get your hands dirty if you want to fix things - and even then, even if the laws and economics are better, it'll still take time. Just leave the actual discussion of politics to some other site:-)

They finally passed a very weak-sauce, complicated version of a law that some of us are pushing for here in Italy: reducing the costs of creating a limited liability company ( http://www.srlfacile.org ), but it does show that if you work at it, you can accomplish things.

Isn't this inevitable given the freedoms given to people to work and live where they like within the EU?

Doesn't something very similar happen within the US where, in general, the brightest and best are drawn to locations where they can get the best opportunities?

I'm a soon to be MSc graduate from a top university in Portugal (Technical University of Lisbon). I've been thinking about my options, and right now I'm pretty sure that I'll try to find my first job outside of Portugal. I've got very few colleagues that I know of that will do the same. Most will go to consultancy companies - that's the market in Portugal. The remaining will go for PhDs.

However, one thing that they all have in common is that they have spoken of leaving Portugal sometime in the future. Be it after their first year or so in consultancy or after their PhD, the thought of leaving has crossed their minds.

Given that other industries are a lot worse than tech right now (civil engineers, lawyers, etc) I'm not really sure how this will turn out for the country.

We just opened up in PT http://appsalad.com/appdesign/nieuw-appsalad-portugal-is-een... (Dutch) and we'll be opening a second office in Faro soon. Most devs want to stay in their country and we don't mind giving them that opportunity.

I never understood why people would leave what they love though; be that India or Portugal or whatever; there is plenty to do and live for if you are resourceful and the Portugese I met so far definitely are.

It's like when we tried to open an office in Spain; everyone (from the uni there) was complaining there are no jobs and they have to move to Germany. So we opened a company and started recruiting. The people who applied didn't want to work actually. So I asked the university dean and he said; they want jobs for eternity they won't 'risk' anything else. The logic eludes me, but suffice it to say; there are plenty of jobs, there is simply a mismatch between expectations and the jobs provided. Naive expectations. When people go to Germany, expectations lower because it's the promised land. Wages are higher, but the conditions are not better and definitely not what you would have gone for in the 'home land', but they take it anyway because the grass is greener.

Having talked to so many people in the south, it's a thing only few people 'get'; you have to embrace the crisis and see the things you can change. It's a turnaround point for all those things which are not well; small things like the difference between the staff in Worten and Mediamarkt. The way to fix the economy must come from many places and this crazy way people treat clients in the south must come to a complete halt. Changing the system from within will work; leaving the country won't, that's just selfish and lazy in a lot of ways. And you have no excuses; there is work, there is opportunity, you just need to try a bit harder as well, it's a crisis.

Fun fact: Portugal is about as big (area and population, though it has half the GDP) as Ohio, the seventh largest US state.