Life and jobs for a foreigner who speaks English

Hi Tulinia,

I can tell you from 13 years of experience living here and Brazil and as someone who teaches both English and Portuguese that you simply cannot get by in this country without speaking Portuguese on a decent conversational level. English is NOT widely spoken anywhere in this country, not even in multinational companies.

As far as the work available to expats, it is not a pretty situation at all. First of all Brazilian law requires that all employers prove to the Ministry of Labor that they have exhausted all efforts to fill any job vacancy with a qualified Brazilian before they can hire a foreign national to fill it. That results in a situation where unless one has a degree in one of the STEM (sci / tech / engin / math) professions or tons of special and relevant experience it's going to be an uphill battle to find a decent job.

About the only work that is readily available to expats is teaching English, Spanish, French or German, usually the language schools pay slave wages, and none will assist in any way with getting a VITEM-V Work Visa.

Sorry for the bad news..... Like the old saying goes, "Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger!"   

Cheers,
James       Expat-blog Experts Team

Whoa! bad news indeed, but thanks for letting me know, James!

Yes, it's not easy by any means to immigrate to Brazil. It helps greatly if you have a university degree especially in some profession, such as medicine, law, engineering, etc. Even then it's still not easy.

Don't give up hope. If you have any further questions, want to know about picking up some language skills, work on improving your educational qualifications don't be afraid to ask. We're all here to help one another.

Cheers,
James

James as you seem to have a good grasp of Brazillian immigration policies, don't you suppose a Syrian might have a good shot at applying for asylum? There is an active war going on there.

And I suppose an already bilingual young woman of 23 would be able to learn Portuguese fairly readily.

Thank you James, I really appreciate it!

Yeah actually I heard that I might be able to get asylum there, but I'm not sure about that

Since you're from Syria, have you considered applying for refugee status in Brazil? The chances of that being successful are probably just as good as those of getting a VITEM-V Work Visa. Given the civil unrest in your country, Brazil would probably look very favorably on your application.

Just remember that you must make an application immediately on arrival, you can't delay it until the end of a stay here or it won't be accepted. You also can't pass through some "safe country" before arriving here or you'd have to make the application for refugee status in that country.

Just for your information, for the year 2013 (last year for which official numbers are publicly available) there were 256 refugee claims made by Syrian citizens arriving in Brazil. This was the fourth largest group applying that year.

At the same time refugee status was granted to 285 Syrians (some who had applied the previous year). Not only was this the No. 1 group for having claims granted that year, but the total was more than all the other nationalities combined.

It's certainly an option worth thinking about.

Cheers,
James

Sounds good, do you have any idea about the Brazilian citizenship? can I apply after a few years if I claimed asylum?

Yes, one must wait 4 years from the time they are granted permanent residency before they can apply for Ordinary Naturalization, that waiting period is reduced to 1 year for anyone who is married to a Brazilian citizen or is the parent of a Brazilian born child. However one of the requirements of citizenship is passing a test of fluency in the Portuguese language.

Thank you so much James!

Sad but history repeat itself: more than one century ago, syrians and lebaneses started to emmigrated to Brazil to escape persecutions. They did great in Brazil and fully integrated in Brazilian society. A lot of famous people in south and south-east are of Syrians and Lebaneses origin.
So for historical reasons, Brazilians autorities are certainly more open to receive immigrants from Syria and Lebanon than from other countries in the region; especially when they are persecuted christians like the ones who emmigrated to Brazil one century ago.