The government wanted to put an end to the expression of interest, which allowed people to come to Portugal as tourists and apply for a visa later, because this would lead to illegal immigration. The order was to close the doors. But with many PRR projects halted due to a lack of workers, and with other sectors experiencing a labor shortage, the government presented a new plan that employers did not like to hear: they can recruit whoever they need, the government will facilitate their arrival and visas, but contracts, training and housing must be guaranteed.
Portugal has a problem. The resident and active population has aged. As a result, there has been a need to resolve the employment shortages through immigration, and this has not been the case for some time now.
The number of foreigners in Portugal has doubled in ten years: there are now more than one million.
In some activities, namely agriculture, tourism and construction, the presence of immigrants is not only relevant, it is essential: without them, immigrants, work stops.
This is what has been happening in the construction sector, where the main associations say there is a shortage of at least 80,000 workers. The lack of labor has led to major public works projects not moving forward, especially those financed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) — which must be completed by the end of 2026 —, with a succession of "deserted" tenders for construction or rehabilitation works for schools, health centers, public housing and university residences, in addition to metro works, for example.
The problem, which was already serious, became even worse when the new government decided, in June, without prior warning, to end the regime of expressions of interest, which allowed entry into Portugal as a tourist, only requiring a residence permit later. Since then, there has been a significant reduction, of more than 80%, in the number of residence applications by immigrants.
That same month, the Government announced the Migration Action Plan. The Executive intended to close the doors to “unregulated” and “facilitated” immigration, seeking instead to attract what is defined as “foreign talent”. In other words, and as the plan describes in measure 17, the Government intended to conduct “a needs assessment” of companies in Portugal and attract, through the “diplomatic and consular network”, qualified “human capital” that would respond to the “current and future workforce shortages in the national economy”. At the same time, the Government would demand from employers “commitments regarding the dignified integration of immigrants”, particularly in terms of “housing” and “professional training” — this, of course, without taking into account the requirement of an employment contract for those who live there.
The Migration Action Plan has been under development since then, but under pressure — the PRR projects are not progressing and there are also shortages of workers in other sectors — the Government decided to bring the employers' confederations to the Social Concertation table this Monday and present them with solutions. Unsurprisingly, the Government is granting what is understood to be a “fast track” for companies to bring in immigrants (the process will be fast-tracked in granting work visas at the consulates of the countries of origin) but, in return, employers must, without fail, guarantee contracts, housing and training. The Government defines the conditions as “ethical recruitment”.
If this is not the case, there is no “green route” and the process is the usual one: apply for a visa (the “green route” does not ignore the requirement for a visa, but delays it) and wait, usually for many months.
At the end of the meeting, the office of the Minister of the Presidency issued a brief statement. It states that the Government intends to recruit in a “controlled and responsible” manner and categorically refuses to return to “the old regime of expressions of interest”, which according to the Government “facilitated illegal immigration”. Having heard the proposal, the Government and employers’ confederations will meet again at the beginning of the year and the new model for the rapid granting of visas could be implemented in the first quarter.
Speaking to CNN Portugal, the “bosses” welcomed the Government’s willingness to resolve an “obvious problem” that arose from the end of the expressions of interest, but they do not seem tempted to assume full responsibility — particularly with regard to housing, despite saying “yes” to guaranteeing contracts — “acting as the State”.
The president of the Portuguese Business Confederation (CIP), Armindo Monteiro, believes that the dialogue with the Government “will result in a good solution” for businesspeople and immigrants, a solution that guarantees “a job offer, a contract, a life project”.
“There needs to be a concrete and transparent employment relationship. They need to come not just to work; they need to come and live. With conditions. With dignity. The concern of Portugal, of a country, when it receives an immigrant cannot be merely to fill a job position, they need to have access to housing, education, training, health, a range of goods and social equality”, argues the president of CIP. And he concludes that we cannot “continue to witness phenomena of ghettoization”.
In turn, Álvaro Mendonça e Moura, president of the Portuguese Farmers' Confederation (CAP), also believes that those who come “need to have their dignified conditions guaranteed, to have a life”, and he believes it is “positive that the Government has recognised that there are problems”. However, it is not up to companies to solve everything.
“The State needs to respond more quickly — at consulates, at AIMA itself. It hasn’t been. People end up coming, waiting a long time for a response, for authorizations, and that’s not dignified. Employers have responsibilities and they want to assume them. In particular, regarding requests, they need to be clear about how much they need and when they need it. They need to respect procedures. However, what they can’t do is ask companies to assume responsibilities that are the State’s”, he points out. And he concludes, without any restraints or cobwebs: “Yes, they can collaborate, they can count on us, but they can’t transfer to companies responsibilities that aren’t theirs. No way.”
Also speaking to CNN Portugal, João Vieira Lopes, president of the Portuguese Confederation of Commerce and Services (CCP), argues that “bosses” cannot, and will not, “replace the role of the State”. “We don’t even have the means to do so. We need to find a balance”, he argues.
At the next meeting, “we will tell the Government this”, says Vieira Lopes, saying he is “hopeful” that the situation regarding the allocation of visas will be resolved “in the first quarter”. “And that, while we are at it, we can resolve the 400,000 pending cases at AIMA. Half of them will be done, the other half is still to come. That will also help”, he believes.
Slow state. Fast people
João Vieira Lopes, from the CCP, tells us that the confederation “represents very diverse sectors, in which immigration has different weights”. In any case, it is necessary. “In commerce, it is estimated that it represents around 10% of workers. In the restaurant industry, it is estimated that it is around 30%. There are sectors where there is more dependence and, therefore, more need — as is the case in construction. However, there are problems, namely a problem of slowness, especially in documentation and residence permits. And we need to solve this problem”, he points out.
Vieira Lopes also says that the expressions of interest “resolved some of these problems”. Having fallen, “what we now want, as social partners, is to reach consensus — methods that are agile and that facilitate hiring”. But according to the strongman of commerce and services, the need for hiring “is not all the same”, because immigration itself “is not all the same”. And he explains: “There is immigration of a social nature, of those who come looking for better conditions, there is immigration due to necessity, due to the sudden need for workers, and there is seasonal immigration. Therefore, not all emigration is ‘predictable’. And we need to consider all of this. At the Confederation [of Commerce and Services of Portugal] we are currently listening to the sectors, which are quite diverse, and we are understanding their needs. And it is important that they tell us whether this type of accountability that the Government wants is possible or not”, he reveals.
Armindo Monteiro, leader of the CIP, is more emphatic than Vieira Lopes. “Immigration is of utmost importance. Our working population in Portugal is decreasing, not only because of aging, but also because some Portuguese people have decided to go and work abroad, to emigrate. Therefore, immigration is necessary to increase productivity and not to reduce GDP. We need to have more people working. We need immigrants. And we need to have a good immigration policy,” he says.
By “good”, Armindo Monteiro understands a migration policy “that is not an open door”. “I am talking about immigration that effectively meets the necessary requirements that we need, that the economy needs. Because if we have spent three or four decades qualifying the population, when we open the door to immigration, ours cannot come without a minimum of qualifications. That would be bizarre. We need to have the right people. Who will help us maintain and transform the economy. Because an economy with little added value, and with unskilled workers, also means low wages. Qualified labor will allow companies to add value and, consequently, pay better wages. It is like a chain effect, a positive chain effect”, he explains.
Regarding “green routes”, Armindo Monteiro believes that these make “sense”. “But I also see a path of rights and obligations”, he says. “Companies will only have a ‘green route’ if they accept the rights and obligations. They have rights in the sense of seeing the processes processed more quickly, yes, and filling the vacant positions, but we cannot forget the obligations, because just because things are processed quickly, with benefits, it does not mean that things are worse and without guarantees. The employment relationship that results from this process must be, and has to be, balanced. I insist on what I have already said: the immigrant worker who comes, does not come just to work, he comes to have living conditions, dignity and rights”, he argues.
Critical — “because in Portugal we are quicker to issue a tax number than a residence visa” —, Armindo Monteiro also says that he is “completely committed to the discussion” that the Government has been trying to have. But he warns the Executive: “We do not want to have an economy that is only about replacement, replacing the aging population, but rather an economy that is about transformation. What the future immigration policy cannot do is send us back to where we want to leave, which is an economy with no added value.”
For Álvaro Mendonça e Moura, from CAP, in agriculture “immigration is of enormous importance”. “Because there is no workforce in Portugal that is needed for the various tasks in agriculture. And the tendency is for there to be even less in the future. Therefore, not only do we need them today, now, ‘for yesterday’, but we must also foresee that we will have even more in the future. We need immigrants. Firstly, to avoid a drop in production. Secondly, for the country to grow. There is no alternative to hiring immigrant workers. It is not a question of whether we want to or not; there is no alternative”, he argues.
However, and contrary to the discourse of the other “bosses”, Mendonça e Moura refuses to believe that what emerges from the discussion between confederations and the Government is a “green route”. “It is not a ‘green route’ at all. Nor do companies want ‘green routes’. What companies want is for the State to function. And the State must function in two ways. One is to control immigration, because we cannot have immigration without control. The other is, if there is control, to receive the people we need, but to receive them well, with conditions, with dignity, in a legal manner”, he concludes.
Overqualification (and senseless decisions)
Catarina Reis Oliveira, from the Migration Observatory, does not mince words: the discourse, particularly that of the government, that only seeks qualified immigration “demonstrates a lack of knowledge regarding what immigration to Portugal is”. And it dismantles the discourse “that we only want the best”. Do we need the best? “This is not necessarily the profile that employers need, nor is it necessarily where there is a shortage. The basic professional groups in Portugal are those where there is a greater need for immigrants, where they make up more than half of the workers. And where qualifications are ‘dispensed with’. On the other hand, this demand for qualifications will lead to overqualification in the Portuguese labour market, with people having to work in other sectors, below their qualifications, because there are no jobs, no opportunities”, she argues.
Catarina Reis Oliveira is not surprised by the need to recruit immigrants. "Portugal is now an ageing country in the European context. And the situation is getting worse. And this has had an impact on the working population. And there is a shortage of workers. These immigrants, whether due to the ageing population or because locals do not want these jobs, are coming to fill our needs, which are quite large in some sectors and economic activities — such as tourism, agriculture, construction — where they represent 40% of the workforce", she explains.
What surprises Catarina, or bothers her, and despite the "important contribution [of immigrants] to Social Security", is that immigration is still seen as an “instrument”.
“There is a feeling that immigrants are a tool, that we can use them as instruments. We need them, we bring them in; if we don’t need them, we leave them behind. And it is strange, a contradiction, to debate the need to ‘close the doors’, the borders, and say that they are needed. In my opinion, the debate must be about how these people can be integrated. It is not about opening or closing the doors. Yes, it is true that the foreign population in Portugal has successively doubled over the last 20 years. Even so, they only make up 10% of residents. In other countries of the European Union, where there are Portuguese emigrants as a foreign population, it is much higher. In the ranking, we are in 18th place. Therefore, the talk of an ‘invasion’, that it is a problem, is unnecessary”, he concludes.
Finally, regarding the need for a system to replace the expressions of interest system, this sociologist and member of the Migration Observatory believes that, rather than being late, coming late is the result of a mistake. At the very least, a miscalculation. “Sudden changes, such as ending this [expressions of interest] without finding alternatives, are a bad solution and harm us, especially companies, especially at AIMA, with those long queues, with people trying to regularize their status. It has consequences. And one of the consequences is exploitation, illegality, having immigrants subject to blackmail by ill-intentioned employers, and not even making contributions because of this, harming the State. If this is not resolved, it will have consequences on the Social Security balance. And the informal economy will skyrocket,” she warns.
Now, there is work, and a path, to be taken. And Catarina Reis Oliveira asks that “the debate be focused”.
“Focus on inclusion. And many of these people we are talking about are already here. But they are not yet minimally integrated. [A good solution, what could it be?] Clearly many of these employers feel uncomfortable hiring or formalizing a contract if the immigrant does not have a residence permit. But they need them. It is a fish with its tail in its mouth. At the moment, there is a lack of a response that, for better or worse, the expression of interests would bring. On the other hand, transferring responsibility to companies also does not make sense. It does make sense to deepen and improve the consular response. Plan the arrival according to the needs of the job market. But there is still no good response in many of these countries from which immigrants arrive to Portugal. There is a lot to be done. And it is being done without another response working. It was a senseless decision”, denounces the sociologist.