Portugal is losing its well-educated young people, who now often prefer to move abroad to work. Now the government is trying to counteract this by waiving their taxes. Will it work?
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00:00What a view! Hundreds of tourists in Lisbon get to enjoy it every day.
00:06The city may be beautiful, but it's no longer affordable for many Portuguese.
00:10We meet Rita Branco in front of Portugal's biggest hospital.
00:14She's handing out flyers from her union and trying to find fellow activists to fight to improve things.
00:21The cost of living is rising, but wages aren't keeping up.
00:28A few hundred kilometers further north, things look a bit brighter.
00:33Carolina Azevedo and her mother are making lunch.
00:37The young woman has recently finished her studies and is about to start working.
00:42She studied medicine in Coimbra, but now…
00:47The basic salary for the first year, starting in January, is 1700 euros gross a month.
00:54I'll work in Portugal for a year, so that I can save money and learn German.
01:02As for housing, in the big cities you pay around 800 or 900 euros.
01:09One year of work there and then she's off.
01:12Because she's not just disappointed with her income.
01:16Carolina interned abroad during her studies and has seen how other countries work.
01:21She now wants to learn German so that she can apply for a job in Switzerland.
01:28My brother works there and I get first-hand information.
01:32That reassures me and makes it clear that I'm not chasing an illusion.
01:38Carolina's plans are a bitter blow for her family.
01:42Two of the three children will soon be working abroad.
01:47We've tried to give them the opportunity to be closer to us, but that's impossible in this country.
01:53They're trying to manage their lives as best they can.
01:58The country's problems are written on political billboards.
02:01Too few emergency rooms, housing shortages and of course the brain drain.
02:06The Portuguese government is aware that too many young people are leaving the country
02:11and that's why it wants to waive their taxes.
02:15Over the past decade we've been struggling with a fundamental demographic problem.
02:20And now we have a problem with competitively low productivity and low wages
02:25compared to the countries of our geographic regions to Portugal.
02:28We believe this initiative could impact 350 to 400 thousand young people.
02:34Economist José Alberto Ferreira is one of the target audience.
02:38He also works in the Italian city of Florence.
02:41But would he come back for lower taxes? No way!
02:44It's not just about salaries, it's also because job and career opportunities in Portugal
02:49are fewer and of lower quality than in other places that attract talent.
02:55Yet Lisbon is considered a start-up mecca.
02:58International projects such as the biotech company Micro Harvest
03:02have a branch on the Tagus River as well as in the German city of Hamburg.
03:08With our presence in Lisbon we want to show that it's possible to work here too.
03:16That it's possible to work in innovation and that there are opportunities.
03:23Portugal lacks large and medium sized companies
03:26and the tax burden has increased so much that even the motivated entrepreneur
03:31admits that it's difficult over the long haul.
03:34Portugal trains its young people well but fails to provide housing even though it's available.
03:41Thousands of apartments and buildings like this one are said to be vacant across the country.
03:46All the more reason to emigrate.
03:51Thiago, 27, works for a management consultancy.
03:55We meet him in a trendy part of Lisbon.
03:57But that makes little impression on him.
04:00He wants to move to Denmark in the coming months.
04:03I've noticed that there's a very clear and noticeable balance
04:08between work and family there.
04:13I'm not just talking about salaries.
04:15I'm talking about the likeness.
04:17I'm talking about the quality of public services, even public transport for example.
04:24It's about career prospects and work-life balance.
04:27That's exactly what four Portuguese engineers confirm in the video call.
04:32They work in Sweden and are happy there.
04:39That was certainly one of the most important factors in us moving here.
04:42That the balance between professional and private life is really good.
04:46Something that we really appreciate.
04:48And that's very different from Portugal.
04:55Portugal attracts millions of tourists but alienates its own young people.
04:59And tax cuts alone are not enough.