Americans eye opportunities in Brazil's booming economy
Todd Harkin worked for 16 years as a chef for a US food chain in Missouri, but two years ago he realised that his employers were offering more opportunities in Brazil than at home.
"There were no more openings there. But in Brazil they were practically doubling their size," says Mr Harkin.
"I asked if they had opportunities for a gringo like me and they said yes."
Jumping at the chance, Mr Harkin moved to Brazil's business capital, Sao Paulo, in 2009, a move that also meant he and his Brazilian wife, Melissa, could be closer to her family.
American-Mexican couple Jose and Marcela Lizarraga also found themselves drawn to Sao Paulo in 2010.
Mr Lizarraga's employers at the time - a company in the hotel sector - decided to move their Latin American headquarters from Dallas to Brazil to take advantage of the country's economic growth.
"Opportunities are happening here, especially for people from other cultures," says Mrs Lizarraga.
Once in Sao Paulo, her husband received an even better job offer and moved to the aviation technology sector. They plan to stay for another 18 months.
The Harkins and the Lizarragas are part of an increasing trend - Americans moving south in search of the "Brazilian dream".
According to the Brazilian Labour Ministry, 7,550 American citizens were granted a work visa in Brazil in 2010, up from 5,590 the previous year and more than double the number in 2006.
The majority of Brazil's legal foreign workers come from the US.
The reasons are clear. The US has been struggling to recover economic growth and unemployment is running at some 9%. By contrast, Brazil's economic performance in recent years has been strong - 7.55% in 2010.
And that means demand for workers has been growing. While China, for example, adds about 400,000 engineers to its workforce annually, only about 35,000 engineers graduate each year in Brazil.
Olympic interest
According to data from employment agency Manpower, published in the Economist, 64% of Brazilian employers find it difficult to fill job vacancies.
Four headhunting companies all confirmed the growing interest from US workers in the Brazilian market, interest that may be further boosted by President Barack Obama's visit to Brazil this weekend.
"The interest in Brazil is not exclusively American but, since we have a big commercial relationship, the number of Americans coming to Brazil is big as well," says Renato Gutierrez, consultant at HR company Mercer.
"There are a lot of American companies buying up Brazilian ones, and vice versa."
"We've always seen Europeans coming to Brazil, but not Americans. Now they are seeing opportunities here," says Jacques Sarfatti, from headhunter Russell Reynolds.
One of the key sectors for foreigners is energy, mostly because of the country's expanding oil and gas exploration industries. There are also opportunities in infrastructure, mining, retail and finance.
Interest in Brazil is increasing as the country gears up to host the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games two years later.
Welcome Expats, a Rio de Janeiro-based company that helps foreigners to settle in Brazil, says demand has doubled since 2009, mainly because more people are coming to work in the oil industry.
"And our services will grow. I've heard of (foreign) companies that plan to bring another thousand people from abroad," says Monica de Mello, owner of Welcome Expats.
Brazil to become another center of world immigration
Today, Brazil can boast of being the seventh largest economy in the world and the largest economy in Latin America. In 2010, the GDP of this country made up 3.7 trillion reals ($2.1 trillion). This year, after two decades of the export of labor force, Brazil has become the country of immigration, which attracts European and Chinese nationals, not to mention Hispanic nationalities. What is more, many Brazilians, who left the country for earnings in Europe and America years ago, have started to return to their motherland.
For the first time in 20 years, the number of foreigners, who entered Brazil to work, to study or to live with their relatives, have exceeded the number of Brazilians, who left the country for similar reasons. According to the Brazilian Ministry for Justice, the number of foreigners, who reside in the country legally, has increased by 52 percent and continues to grow. From 2009 to 2010, the issue of permanent residence visas has increased by 67 percent.
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The growth in the number of illegal immigrants made up as many as 600,000 people during the same period of time. Their total amount reached 2 million people. As many as 4 million Brazilians were living outside Brazil in 2005. Two million of them have already returned to their native land.
The Brazilian economy has been growing during the recent years against the background of the ongoing crisis in the USA, Europe and Japan. The Portuguese make the largest group of legal migrants in Brazil today. The list continues with natives of Bolivia, Paraguay and China. The Bolivians make the largest group of illegal migrants - 40 percent (according to the amnesty in 2009).
Brazil became an attractive market for qualified foreign labor force According to the Brazilian Ministry for Labor, the number of foreigners holding work visas made up 26,545 people in the first half of 2011. The index marked a 20-percent increase as compared to the same period of 2010.
The process may continue to develop in connection with the growth of unemployment in the developed countries. It is foreign investors (China, Korea, Japan) that create the demand. They invest in the Brazilian industry and attract their country-fellows to live and work in Brazil.
One of Brazil's biggest problems is the poor quality of education, especially when it comes to technology-intensive professions. Experts say that the lack of qualified personnel in the field of telecommunications and informational technologies (programmers and system analysts - approximately 2 million people) may slow down the further development of the country.
That is why the country is ready to annually welcome nearly 20,000 engineers in the field of geological exploration, road building, the construction of seaports and airports. Hotel managers, programmers, communication specialists, medical specialists, architects, biologists and engineers of other specialities are also in demand in today's Brazil.
Foreign specialists presumably come to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo. The growth of foreign labor was also registered in the north-east and in the midwest of the country (by 134 and 48 percent respectively). The north-east of Brazil attracts foreign investments in the realization of projects in the field of petrochemistry, ship-building, steel-casting and mining industries.
As for illegal immigration, it presumably consists of non-qualified personnel working in the fields of construction and public utilities. According to the data of the latest amnesty in 2009, the majority of 45,000 legal immigrants arrived in Brazil on tourist visas. During the first stage of the amnesty, they received two-year residence permits. To be able to stay in Brazil permanently, the people will have to provide six-month employment certificates from their employers. According to experts' estimates, only a half of illegal aliens will become legal residents of Brazil by the end of the year.
One may become a legal Brazilian resident by opening their own business. To be able to do that, one will have to have a bank account with $50,000 on it. In this case, residence permits will be issued without any problems. Unlike in the USA, any person aged below 50 and having a monthly income that starts from $2,000 may immigrate to Brazil and take two relatives along. The immigrant would have to provide the income of $1,000 for the relatives.
Brazil can not compete with the largest centers of world immigration - the USA, China and Canada, of course. As many as 56,000 work visas, which were issued in Brazil in 2010, are equivalent to one-tenth of the number of work visas issued over the same period of time in the USA and to a quarter of visas issued in Canada and China.
The trend is obvious, though. Only eight million people submitted applications this year to take part in the lottery in which winners receive residence and work permits in the United States. Last year, the number of submissions was much larger - 15 million. Brazil undoubtedly offers wide opportunities for employment and business, some of which are connected with world's largest sports projects, such as the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016.
Lubov Lulko
Pravda.Ru
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