Western Europeans are moving to former colonies due to the economic crisis
As Novye Izvestia notes, it is not only foreigners who once emigrated to Europe who are leaving. Native Europeans are leaving the EU, both highly qualified specialists and those willing to work as laborers. The statistics for Spain are particularly striking. If in the early 2000s this country was one of the most attractive destinations for migrants, then last year, when unemployment firmly exceeded 20%, it became an exporter of labor for the first time since the early 1990s.
In the first 9 months of 2011, according to the Spanish National Institute of Statistics, 55,626 more people left the country than entered. Previously, Germans often emigrated to Spain, dreaming of spending their old age on the shores of warm seas. Now, on the contrary, Spaniards have rushed to Germany, where the economic situation is much better than at home.
People are also leaving Spain overseas. Of the 37 thousand Spaniards who left the country in 2010, almost 60% went outside Europe, primarily to Latin America. Experts predict that the number of emigrants will grow in the near future. According to a study by Randstad, which examines labor market conditions, 62% of Spanish unemployed are ready to go abroad in search of work.
At least 100 thousand of the 11 million Portuguese moved abroad in 2011. The most Portuguese (about 70 thousand), according to the emigration department, have been received over the past 8 years, oddly enough, by the African country Angola. Mostly, people from this former Portuguese colony go there. In second place is Brazil, where 52 thousand Portuguese received work visas by June 2011.
In Ireland, where unemployment has approached 15%, emigration has been steadily growing for the last three years. Most residents of Ireland traditionally go to the USA and Great Britain. The population of the island, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), was declining at a rate of about 1 thousand people per week last year. For this year, ESRI gave an even more bleak forecast – 75 thousand people will leave the country.
Greeks are also leaving the country in droves. Greece has had no colonies in modern history, so the list of countries where residents of Hellas go in search of work is very long: from Australia to Russia, China and Canada. As in other countries, skilled workers and specialists are the first to leave. Suffice it to say that over the past year Greece lost almost one in ten doctors.
Sergey MANUKOV.
