Growth expected for foreign residents in Algarve

Attracted to the region by the sunshine, beautiful, fine sandy beaches and better job opportunities, more foreign immigrants are expected to settle in the Algarve over the next 20 years, when the total amount of foreign ex-pats are expected to reach 200,000.

A future demographic chart created by Eurostat has predicted that in 2030 the Algarve will have around 564,000 inhabitants, more than a third of whom will be foreign residents, a quarter of whom will be aged over 65.

With a current population of 443,000 people, Eurostat predicts that the migratory influx to the Algarve will increase by 13.4 percent over the next two decades, placing the region at the third highest in the EU in terms of demographic growth, after Northern Ireland and Murcia, Spain.

The difference between resident Algarveans choosing to leave the region and those incoming over the next 20 years will result in an extra 119,000 foreign residents, many more than the 72,000 ex-pats who currently live there.

As a result, two decades from now, one in every three Algarve inhabitants will be foreign.

Today, the biggest foreign communities in the Algarve are the Brazilian community (12,000 residents), the British community (10,000 residents) and the Ukrainian community (also 10,000 residents).

Experts predict this order will remain as such in years to come.

As well as the foreign communities there are also an estimated 33,000 Portuguese residents in the Algarve who are originally from other parts of Portugal.

Meanwhile it has been established that current immigrants to Portugal no longer seek the country for job opportunities, as only 26 percent of the 3,800 available openings aimed at immigrants last year were filled.

Contrary to the lack of interest shown by foreign workers in 2009, the year before, when there were more than double the amount of available positions aimed specifically at that sector, all of the 8,500 openings were filled.

Source The Portugal news