Easy access
Journalism
Themes
Formats
Programs
News
Support Gerador in building a more creative, critical and participatory society. Find out how here.
Despite being the most educated generation ever, it is common to find young people with plans in the drawer for many years. In this Essential Report, we address access to a competitive job market, which is made up of constant ramps, continued precariousness and intergenerational challenges.
One thing that many young people point out as their first opportunity is professional internships. It is worth noting that these internships are promoted by the Institute of Employment and Professional Training (IEFP), within the scope of the ATIVAR.PT measure, and their aim is to promote the professional integration of unemployed young people who have acquired a new level of qualifications. They also function as support for companies, which see the internship grant being subsidized between 65% and 80%, with a young graduate being entitled to a grant of €789,86.
We sought out the experiences of young graduates to understand their challenges and identify the types of job insecurity that exist at the beginning of a career. Read their testimonies.
Micael Silva, 25, says he is creating his own opportunities. His goal is to make a difference in Portalegre, where he was born and raised. “I don’t see myself leaving here, I see myself fighting until I succeed. When I can’t do it anymore, then maybe I’ll leave.” He graduated in Management, but soon realized that it was marketing that he wanted to pursue.
He currently works part-time in a shop. “I’ve been surviving this way, between that and doing odd jobs from time to time.” In the interview, he says that he recently got together with his girlfriend and they want to build a house and invest in a local accommodation business. However, at the moment, “earning around €450 a month, I can’t invest in myself or in my life.” He recently took a training course and is also trying to attract companies to start doing consultancy.
It was 2013 when Ana Afonso, 28, left Covilhã at the age of 21, full of hope, to seek better opportunities. At the time, already a graduate in Human Biology, she recalls that the employment climate in Portugal was “horrible, there was a lack of vision”.
“At the time, I didn’t know if I would stay for long or not, I had no idea what was going to happen,” Ana recalls. Seven years have passed since then. Although Ana took a risk, she says that after moving to England, she was “blessed” because she found a steady job in a famous restaurant chain, where she was promoted and started to provide training. Although it was not the ideal environment for a recent graduate and required constant adaptation, she became interested in teaching. She ended up doing a postgraduate degree to be able to teach in England and is now a Biology teacher.
In the interview, Ana makes no secret of the fact that the typical Portuguese “getting by” is very useful to her and that, on sunny days, she is filled with nostalgia and memories. She has certain habits that make her return home.
Listening to Portuguese radio is one of them. When she misses home even more, “she has to cook like her mother does,” she says proudly. Not everything is a bed of roses and, sometimes, “she just wants to pick up everything and go back.”
Beatriz Freitas-Branco, 23 years old and from Lisbon, admits to having been lucky when entering the job market, as her first opportunity in her field of study came up relatively quickly. She graduated in Journalism and soon found a job with a permanent contract, which does not reflect the reality of employment contracts.
Things were going well for Beatriz until, with two weeks left on her six-month trial period, everyone was sent home in March 2020 due to Covid-19.
Although the company that had previously let her go invited her back after a few months, she admits that her search for a new job was a “very frustrating” time. During that time, she shared her experience on YouTube. She completed the remaining two weeks of her trial period and has now been working at the company on a permanent contract for a year.
"Although it's not my dream job, I can't complain. I have a lot of colleagues who are on green receipts," he notes.
For Fernando Teixeira, who lives in Coimbra, precariousness is also present in universities, something he considers to be common to many areas of study. “Precariousness begins with access to university, in the way it is done, how you get in and what you pay.”
But the path to precariousness becomes more pronounced once one leaves higher education. For the 26-year-old, who has a degree in Law and a postgraduate degree in Labour Law, a large part of the problem lies in the internships after graduation. In law, it is necessary to complete a curricular internship, lasting around a year and a half. An internship that, as a rule, is unpaid. Although it is not formally a job, the young man says that the obligations he fulfills are the same as those of a salaried relationship.
In the interview, Fernando lists other problems and believes that “all of this is due to the Bar Association’s own objective of maintaining the elitism of the profession and failing to look at today’s reality. And the objective has been achieved.” Along the way, many give up, he says.
You responded to a job advert that mentioned an employment contract. After the interview, you were asked if you were able to do a professional internship, which you did. You are currently on your second professional internship and there is no way to arrange a permanent contract.
From a young age, Ricardo Domingos was drawn to anything involving cranes, scaffolding, bricklayers and workers. “I come from a humble family, where life was always based on work.”
Being a civil engineer was a goal and he became a student of the subject long before he could say so. “While most of my friends were unsure about what they really wanted to do, I had only one goal: to be a Civil Engineer.”
The 25-year-old from Faro graduated in Civil Engineering. With his convictions firmly established, he believes that, at that time, he went where no one else wanted to go. “I had the prospect of finishing my degree at a time of changing economic paradigms.”
When he started looking for his first job in the field in 2016, he felt that there were few opportunities and that there was little respect for the profession, both financially and in terms of what was required of the worker. Despite this, he is now employed, but is also studying for a master's degree, because he believes that a degree only provides the foundation for practicing the profession.
Ricardo believes that companies are currently taking refuge in professional internships to recruit “highly qualified” professionals who can carry out specialized work “almost for free”, with the State covering a significant part of the remuneration. “I was one of them and I can assure you that I received more in experience than in salary.” The reward for years of study is slow to arrive, which has led him to consider the risk of leaving the country. However, he shares that he would only do so if he identified a priori a concrete job opportunity abroad.
Liliana Ferreira, 24, a graduate in Painting and a Masters student in Fine Arts, in Caldas da Rainha, where she was born, intends to leave the country as soon as she finishes her studies. “I really have to leave Portugal”, she says in an interview. “Wanting to be an artist in Portugal is not at all easy, especially when you don’t have many opportunities”, she explains. I always thought about having to emigrate and most of my family did the same.
Liliana, who combines her studies with working in a restaurant, plans to go to London, where “there is enormous cultural diversity, and that is very important for an artist’s work”. Seeing other cultures, broadening horizons: “To understand that the world is not like this, it is much more”.
Francisco Azul, 28, says he has never hidden his ethnicity. “I didn’t have to, as a Portuguese gypsy I am very proud of my roots,” he adds. Despite having had a natural entry into the job market, he knows that this is not the reality for many young gypsies, who, as a result, “have already hidden their membership of the gypsy community.”
In his gratitude for the rehousing program, which helped families in need, Francisco highlights the need to continue investing in inclusive housing policies. “That’s what made me who I am today.”
Sport has been with him throughout his school career and in his dreams. He decided to pursue a degree in Social Work, with the aim of combining sport with social integration in disadvantaged areas.
In his second year, in 2016, he was invited to work at the High Commission for Migration, in the support center for gypsy communities. Since then, he has been working as a technician in this center of the High Commission for Migration. The good results are clear to see.
Having gypsy people in the urban area, living alongside non-gypsy people, would be, for Francisco, the best social project, but he points out that there are still many obstacles in renting.
With an adventurous spirit, Rita Almeida, 24, after graduating in Sociology and not knowing exactly what she wanted to do next, went to Belgium to take a gap year. She learned the language, traveled and worked as a babysitter.
It was in that year that he realized that he liked investing in the communications area. When he returned to Sintra, where he was from, he enrolled in a postgraduate course in journalism, which was going well until the time came for his internship.
She was the only one in the group of students who didn’t have the opportunity to study journalism, and ended up doing a production internship. “I was the only black person in that group of students and the only one to be placed in that position.” Unable to accept why, she gathered courage and began to demand her right. “I wasn’t going to finish my internship without doing journalism, but it was seen as an attack, and for me, it was clear that it was a case of racism.” She felt it on several occasions.
After finishing her internship, she was the only one who didn't stay, in a group of about ten interns. Somewhat afraid that the situation of prejudice would happen again, Rita decided to leave journalism.
Even though her career path was turned upside down, she found an opportunity in the human resources field, as part of a professional internship. Although it was not the area that interested her, she was surprised by a respectful team.
