The governor of the Bank of Portugal warned that without this mobility in the labor market, "we would have lost two-thirds of economic growth."
The Governor of the Bank of Portugal (BdP), Mário Centeno, warned on Wednesday that Portugal has no future without mobility and immigrants, at a time when Parliament is discussing new immigration laws.
In a conference held at the 46th anniversary celebration of the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, the governor of the BdP said that the "powerful concept behind this enormous success of our economies and societies is the phenomenon of labor and human mobility. Without it, Europe has no future, and without it, Portugal has no future ."
He continued: " Almost two-thirds of the increase in production over the last five years in Portugal is associated with the increase in the mobility of people and work in Portugal ."
" Without this mobility, we would have lost two-thirds of economic growth ," added Mário Centeno.
In the eurozone, 12 million jobs were created in the last five years and, of these, 7.2 million (60%) were occupied by people who work in a country other than the one where they were born , said the governor of the Bank of Portugal.
Still on the job market, the head of the BdP noted that, over the last ten years, wages paid in Portugal have almost doubled : "It's almost statistically dizzying to see that in ten years we did what we had done in 900 years of history," he observed.
"A large part of this is increased employment; employment grew by almost 40%, the rest is increases in the average wage. Why did the average wage in Portugal rise so dramatically? Yes, the minimum wage increased, but because we increased our qualifications like never before in our history," Mário Centeno stressed.
He also mentioned that the most dynamic sectors in forming the numbers he put forward "are those that pay above-average salaries", leaving aside, for example, the tourism sector.
"It's not tourism, it's scientific information and communication activities; the most dynamic industrial sectors in terms of qualifications are those that have contributed most to this evolution," he said.
In what may have been his last public intervention before his term as head of the Bank of Portugal ends on the 19th, Centeno provided other data, recalling, for example, that between 2008 and 2014 (the period corresponding to the global financial crisis and the intervention of the 'troika' in Portugal), investment in housing construction in Portugal fell by 83%.
In that five-year period, he added, the same sector reduced its production by around 60%.
"It's a huge challenge we face, but being at a university and also having some academic spirit, I have to say it's a good challenge," emphasized Mário Centeno.
The President of the Republic today separated the economic and preventive plan of the governor of the Bank of Portugal (BdP), Mário Centeno, and the social responsibilities of those who govern "and have to act" taking advantage of the budgetary slack.