Classified information:
More people are moving out
The classified ads' columns in newpapers can provide an accurate barometer of trends in a community. A major trend currently on display in the Algarve is that more and more people – Portuguese and foreign nationals – are leaving the country because of the economic climate.
The publishers of the weekly Algarve 123 recently analysed the classifieds in their paper over the past 64 issues. They found that the phrase “for sale due to leaving the country/ moving abroad” is becoming increasingly frequent. Algarve 123 is a tri-lingual paper with Portuguese and German readers, as well as English. The most common profile of those placing ads indicating they are moving out is a Portuguese, in their 30s. He or she is looking for work, but simply cannot find it here.
An article headed “Who'll be left?” in the current issue of the paper said of many advertisers: “They put the contents of their homes up for sale (furniture, household appliances, children’s toys even), as well as their cars. And we ask ourselves: can the country really afford to lose these active members of the population; these families who supposedly are (or should be) the basis of contemporary society?”
Ads over the past 64 weeks also reveal an increasing number of British, German, Dutch and even Brazilian citizens leaving the Algarve to return to their homeland, off-loading family pets among other possessions in the process.
A German reader who had a business in the Algarve for many years said she was leaving because she was 'sick and tired of the way the economy here doesn’t work'.
“This was just one example among many small businesses, shops and services that should be bringing dynamism and diversity to the Algarve. Instead, everyday, they’re closing down,” the paper commented.
It wondered if the Algarve is going to end up being inhabited only by retired people and the corrupt?
3 comments:
Whilst what you report here may have some basis in fact, I am astonished that you end up with the inference that only old people and the corrupt will be left. I am neither of those things and nor are the vast majority of people that I know here. Why ruin your article with such a ridiculous question?
Michael, I was merely relaying information and opinion contained in a local newspaper.
Incidentally, and perhaps I should have made this clearer, the editorial piece referred to was written by a Portuguese journalist and it was intended to reflect the views of increasingly disillusioned and desperate young Portuguese rather than relatively well-to-do expats.
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