Hi everyone,

I've been lurking, reading through reading old posts trying to do as much research as possible.

My husband and myself (we're 29) have been considering migrating to Portugal with our two kids 7 and 5 and the main underlying thing I see is that job prospects are limited.

We are from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, however, my husband has Portuguese papers.

My husband is a certified electrician (but will have to do transfer exams) and I am into beauty therapy, I'm a nail technician and also offer a few other services.

I have my degree in marketing and actually work in publishing in a magazine as well where we're from.

From what I've gathered so far job prospects are very limited in Portugal and it is best to network in person rather than looking at employment opportunities online. I've seen a lot of posts dating back years and wondered has the employment opportunities in Portugal changed at all since?

It seems like realistically to be prepared to have at least 2000/month for 2 years saved to make sure to have a proper cushion. But I wondered what possibilities exist currently and if we should be looking elsewhere.

I don't want to rain on your parade - but I think you probably recognise that any plan to come to Portugal looking for work is pretty much a non-starter.

You don't say whether either of you can speak Portuguese - I presume not. If this is the case, then the prospect of either of you gaining employment - and particularly employment paying anything more than the minimum wage - are very limited. Here, couples both need to work in order to pay for the things we all think of as "normal", such as having an apartment and a small car ...... let alone paying for luxuries.

This is a country where the young and talented have been advised to look abroad for a career and have done so. It is a country which, due to free access to the employment market from EU member states and internal unemployment, has no shortage of candidates for any vacancy (although that doesn't always mean jobs are easy to fill).

Your husband would need to be qualified in Portugal as an electrician in order to work - and pay rates for such jobs are not comparable to elsewhere - a qualified Electrician/Plumber/IT Cabler who worked at my house earlier this year earned c€700 a month. Your own work relies on people who require your services (and I'm not the best person to comment on that) - and unless you work exclusively with expats then a lack of conversational Portuguese will probably be a major handicap.

If you were alone, then you could try it and change your mind after a few months if it doesn't work out - but the thought of dragging a couple of young kids to a foreign country, where they have no friends and don't speak the language probably rules out that sort of thing.

I'm sure others will advise, but for me, I think you're better looking elsewhere.

Thanks for your honesty it's what I was kind of expecting, so I said let me ask still. He does have hopes of buying a cheap vineyard and making that his living instead, which I told him sounds like it should be our retirement plans largely on the basis that it'll take us years for the vineyard to even be up and running in the first place to even turn a decent sum of money.

I just wanted to hear someone else confirm what I was reading and gathering as the climate, but wanted to verify if anything has changed much in the past few years.

English only, though we are trying to learn Portuguese here home, though it is Brazilian Portuguese.

Forget earning a living out of vinyards unless you can afford to buy & market on a massive scale.

Damn near every house here has vines & makes it's own wine....... it's not unusual for very good wine to be given away to friends & neighbours & even if bought, a good local wine similar to a merlot cab sav blend can be bought retail for €5 per 5 litres

It can be done if you have the money and skills.
The algarve now has number of premium wine producers with brands like the one promoted by C,iff Richard.
We have a Dutch neighbour who sells the bulk of his vintage in Holland.
These wineries are far from being kitchen sink producers but are the result of modern technology and investments of 100,s thousands of Euros..

I've worked here for 9 years now. As I have mentioned before in the forum - while jobs aren't impossible to find - it is a very hard graft getting one. Without the language, even more so. Graduates qualified with Masters level degrees (often in science/engineering) find that the only type of work available is working in call centres, or as technical support for mobile phone companies, or electronics goods etc. Many others simply move abroad for careers. The food industry, wine and tourism may offer some opportunities.

if i twas the just two of you - you and your husband, it could be worth a shot for a few months. But with two kids - it could be very destabilising for them.

To give you an idea of how hard the work situation is here (at least in my area) there's a young Portuguese lady working as a shelf stacker in my local supermarket who is a fully qualified pharmacist.

Sadly she can't find work in her own field & she feels something is better than nothing.

As mfesharne has commented, it is not unusual to find someone like the shelf stacker in most supermarkets. My neighbour's daughter is a qualified vet and she is working in a bar!

.... andd quite a few butchers are working as vets.

Sorry, maybe that's just what I've found

wow thanks everyone! This is what I expected but wanted to ask realistically from others who might be there and have actual experience before just jumping and assuming.

We certainly don't have 100's of thousands of euros to invest into it.

Hmm any suggestions for a more sustainable option for a family within the EU?

Stick to what you know, do an analysis of your life skills and professional skills. Package that into something people need/want/will pay for. Do some specific marketing to prospective employers in all geographic areas. Once one of you is in lucrative employment then major on a campaign for the other.

Publishing, social media engineering and marketing are sought after skills in for example the real estate industry. Be a bug, put yourself out there, create your own luck and your own opportunities. Nothing will fall from the sky into your lap, you need to market yourself excellently so that people can see you could also do that for them.

Assuming you have a PC etc then the only investment you really need to make is some time and some phone calls. Hope things work for you !

With the refugee crisis and the internal issues within the EU, it's not a good time to jump. Most EU economies have nowhere near recovered from the slump - certainly nowhere in Southern Europe. Northern Europe and Scandinavia are already targets for infra-Europe migration and refugee settlement - so, at best you will be competing with a large number of other migrants.....

I guess it depends where and what you're coming from, but be aware that "House Full" signs are starting to go up all over Europe and anti-migrant parties are gaining popularity. Most migrants are taking whatever work they can get (and you had examples of the situation in Portugal, even for qualified Portuguese), so to make use of any experience or training, you need to be very, very good and catch a lucky break.

Unless you have a definite promise of work, I'd say now is not the time to uproot the family.

Gotcha Thanks for the advice!

We have a pretty bad climate here where we are from it's why we were considering the move to begin with. High cost of living, very little opportunity for upward mobility. But it seems like even with that, we have a better shot here at least for now especially for the kids etc. And perhaps can depend on having the passports to use in later years when they're older and can benefit from it as teenagers or better year for university.

I disagree; get away from Trinidad and get your family to Europe.
Maybe not Portugal.
The housing market is bouncing back, there will be work for electricians.
However, check that you can get certified by asking people in the trade; some countries have long mandatory apprenticeships for electricians during which your pay is very low.
Forget about the wine.
Get the kids into an EU country while they can easily become fluent in language, get EU qualifications and make some EU friends.

Portugal has great weather, but Northern Europe has jobs.

That's what I think.

Any specific northern Europe recommendations? Of course our biggest fear in doing this is while we're confident in our kids being able to learn the language we worry about ourselves learning it. But then nothing like immersion to really get to learn the language right!?