Europeans seek new opportunities in Brazil

[ocpagu]

Source: AFP

With anemic job markets at home, a growing number of Europeans are seeking employment outside the region. Brazil, Latin America's economic powerhouse, is among those places increasingly viewed as a land of opportunity.

After working for an agribusiness firm in suburban Paris for 10 years, 33-year-old FrenchwomanAfeida Ghaleb decided to move to Brazil last July. She said she is glad to have made the switch.

"I escaped the crisis in Europe. Being bicultural (French and Arab), I wanted to try my luck abroad," said Ghaleb, who is of Algerian descent.

Brazil "is more open. You are not pigeonholed, There is more opportunity to move from one sector to another," she added. "France unfortunately does not value diversity."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/europeans-seek-opportunities-brazil-065228659.html

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According to the text, "the number of foreigners living legally in Brazil rose more than 50 percent from January to June this year, from 962,000 to 1.5 million." Many people see Brazil exclusively as a an emigration country (which is partially true) but, in fact, the number of Brazilians that Brazil sends abroad and the number of people that Brazil receives from other countries has been almost the same for the last decade. The difference is that, most part of illegal immigrants that Brazil used to receive was composed by citizens of the poorer South American countries, as well as Africans and Asians. Now, according to the text, most part are coming from the developed world, mainly from Portugal (329,000 in a year). It's also commons to see Spanish and French immigrants communities in the largest Brazilian cities.

I hope that this might help some European folks understand that what goes around comes around, that they are not free of unpleasant or even catastrophic events that might force some of them to move to other areas and that if this happens, they'll want to be treated with dignity and respect. They should know that, since half a century ago they were coming by the millions to run away from a continent drowned in the World War II blood and they were received with open arms by the countries whose immigrants now they not only refuse, but, some o them even have some kind of bizarre pleasure in humiliating.