More than 36,000 immigrants came into Portugal last year, surpassing the almost 32,000 people who left the country, the Observatory for Migration revealed on Tuesday, 18 December.
According to the observatory’s annual statistics report, last year Portugal had a positive migration balance of 4,886, for the first time since 2010.
In 2017, 36,639 people immigrated to Portugal, a figure only comparable with results from the past decade, such as 2006, when 38,800 people entered the country.
On the other hand, the number of people who left the country dwindled, from 38,273 in 2016 to 31,753 in 2017, which gives a positive balance.
Foreigners make up 4.1 percent of the population residing in the country, with 421,711 people, which is an increase of six percent on 2016.
According to the observatory, the “residing foreign population is not distributed evenly throughout the country,” it is concentrated mainly in urban areas along the coastline, with greater impact in the municipalities of the Algarve (southern Portugal), from European Union countries such as Italy or France, and Asia.
As for jobs, compared to Portuguese citizens, foreign citizens work more in the basic professional groups, and overall have a lower average income, and their insertion in the labour market “continues not to reflect their qualifications.”
For the Portuguese who did emigrate, counties including the UK and Angola were still among the most popular destinations.
And despite the overall drop in the number of Portuguese heading overseas to find greener pastures, neighbouring Spain has seen the number of Portuguese packing up and moving there, rise by 18 percent.