Young, Hopeless Europeans Flock to Former Colonies

Rather than wait for prosperous economic times to return to her native Portugal, Tatiana Almeida (26), educated to be a journalist, decided to leave and move to East Timor, a former colony in Southeast Asia, in search for opportunities.
“There’s a big, dark cloud hanging over Portugal. (…) There is no real future for my generation,” Almeida told CNBC.

Instead, she bought a ticket to Dili, the capital of East Timor. Two weeks after she arrived she found a job as a communication consultant in a museum in East Timor.

“I found hope in East Timor,” she said. “I don’t want to go back to Portugal any time soon.”

Almeida is just one of many citizens from debt-choked European countries moving overseas, particularly to former colonies, in search of a better future.

As youth unemployment in Europe continues to rise, young Spaniards are leaving for Latin America; Portuguese are heading to Brazil, Angola and East Timor; and young Irish and Greeks are opting for Australia, which has large diaspora communities from these two countries.

Numbers from Europe’s statistics agency captures the migration that is under way.
The number of 20- to 29-year-olds fell by 8.8 percent year-on-year in Ireland, by 4.3 percent in Spain and by 3.5 percent in Portugal in the second quarter of 2012, according to Eurostat data.

Earlier this year, Laszlo Andor, the European Employment Commissioner, also called on unemployed youth in the European Union to consider opportunities across the border: “If we want to create more opportunities for the young people, we have to create and highlight … opportunities in other countries.”

Compared to 2009, the number of short-term arrivals of Greek citizens in Australia are up 21 percent to about 4,000 people between May and November 2011, according to Australia’s statistics bureau. 

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