|
 Thinking
of moving to Brazil? If the aim is to make a lot of money
then think again. Do not assume that you will find casual work
as easily as in Europe or the US. Not only is the unemployment rate high,
but the pay for this kind of work is so low that almost
no European or American would accept it.
by:
John Fitzpatrick
Since I became a regular
contributor to Brazzil, a number of readers have contacted me seeking
advice on living conditions in Brazil. While some of these readers have
been thinking of moving here indefinitely, others were considering spending
only a few months. The only practical advice I have been able to give
is that, while man does not live by bread alone, he certainly does need
money to survive.
If you do not have
money in the form of savings when you arrive, you will have to find a
source of income here. If you are lucky enough to have been transferred
by your employer on an expatriate contract then you have nothing to worry
about. Not only will your employer look after you like a baby, providing
a house or apartment, maid, free schooling for your children, medical
insurance for your family and so on, but probably part of your salary
will be paid back home, far from the hands of the greedy Brazilian taxman.
This article is not written for these fortunate few. Nor is it meant to
be any kind of tourist guide.
Let us consider two
cases: a) the single person who just wants to spend, say, a year either
in one place or traveling around; and b) the skilled foreigner, perhaps
with a returning Brazilian wife, who arrives here with no job.
Living On the Cheap
If you are in the
first category then you are in a more fortunate position. Brazil can be
a cheap place if you are prepared to rough it a bit. In the last year
the real has lost about 50 percent of its value against the dollar and,
at the time of writing, is trading at around R$3.05/US$1. Life can be
ridiculously cheap for someone with a fistful of dollars. For example,
in São Paulo you can buy a wholesome meal in a simple restaurant
for R$5 or $6. It will consist of a big helping of rice, beans, chips
(that's French fries to American readers), chicken, beef or fish, plus
a huge salad with lettuce, tomatoes, peas, onions etc. With that under
your belt you should not need to eat for the rest of the day. From a street
stall you can get a hot dog with an enormous amount of additives—cheese,
chili sauce, crisps etc—for R$1.50 or less. If this kind of bulk
is not to your taste there are places everywhere in which you choose what
you want and pay by weight. These places always have good selection of
lighter fare, including salad and fruit. Since most Brazilians are poor
by European or American standards, cheap eating places are the norm and
often they are very good. Outside big cities like São Paulo the
prices will be lower.
You can find rooms
in simple hotels for about R$30 a day or even less. Traveling by bus,
rather than air, is time consuming but the difference in price is amazing.
For example, to fly from São Paulo to Rio costs around R$300, whereas
by bus it costs R$55 for a seat which folds down into a kind of bed or
R$33 for normal seat. I reckon that with about US$3,000 you could easily
spend three to four months in Brazil and even stretch it to six months
if you tried.
One point worth making,
though, is that if your money does start to run out do not assume that
you will find casual work as easily as in Europe or the US. Not only is
the unemployment rate high, but the pay for this kind of work is so low
that almost no European or American would accept it. This does not mean
there are no opportunities. Teaching English, or being a tourist guide,
are some ways of making some money.
Teaching English is
the most common. The pay is low but if you are young and fancy free this
could help you out financially. The Brazzil forum has an extensive
correspondence on teaching English, where a lot of useful information
can be found. The forum also has useful advice for those who want to work
but have entered on a tourist visa. One final point though which I cannot
stress enough: if you are planning to spend some time here then learn
Portuguese. Do not think that some basic Spanish will do—it won't.
Professionals,
Be Prepared!
If you are a professional
you will have a tougher time. Unless you are married to a Brazilian or
have some special skill you are unlikely to get a resident's permit, known
as a visto permanente. Even with this permit, which contains your
foreign registration number (RNE) you will need to get a tax registration
number (CPF). My advice is to get the residence permit at a Brazilian
consulate abroad, if possible. Without these two documents it is virtually
impossible to do anything—from renting an apartment to renting a
video at the local Blockbuster. On top of these two essential bits of
paper, you will also need a work permit known as a carteira de trabalho.
It took me six miserable
months to get my work permit and even now I can hardly bear to think of
the bureaucracy and bungling involved. This did not stop me from working,
but was a sword of Damocles hanging over my head the whole time. Fortunately
my Brazilian employers were used to the bureaucracy and, with a patience
I never had, just assumed it would get sorted out some day or other. It
did, but only because I took the initiative, not them.
When I first arrived
most of this registration was done by hand and even in the main labor
ministry and immigration departments in São Paulo, there was not
a computer in sight. About a year later I had to go through the whole
process again when the system was computerized. Even then, my RNE was
still an interim one and consisted of a flimsy piece of paper containing
my picture, a smudged stamp and a scrawled signature.
It took almost two
years to get the new RNE and during this time my document started to fall
to pieces quite literally. As I did quite a lot of traveling in this period,
I was constantly questioned by the immigration police on entering and
leaving the country. In the end I hired a fixer, called a despachante,
to sort the whole thing out for me. I had to pay him but it was worth
it.
Low Wage Country
If you can put up
with all this hassle, the next step is finding a job. Sending résumés
to employment agencies and chasing up newspaper adverts is, in my experience,
almost a waste of time. Brazilian companies treat people like dirt, especially
job seekers, and being a foreigner will make no difference. Others have
written about this in Brazzil so I will not go over the same ground,
but be warned.
If you do get offered
a job you will probably be disappointed at the salary. The first time
I was offered a salary to take up a position with a lot of responsibility
I assumed the amount was for a week and not a month. Do not forget that
the minimum wage here is R$240 and pay is often calculated as a multiple
of it. Many people, including professionals, cannot get by on their salaries
and have to take on extra work.
I know two people
who have both recently been offered responsible managerial positions by
multinationals, one in the services industry and the other in manufacturing
industry. In the first case, the salary was much more than her existing
salary but, in my opinion, still about 25 percent less than the position
merited. In the other case, the company expected this person to make a
difference to its bottom line results in Brazil yet was only prepared
to offer 10 percent above her existing salary. Since these were both foreign
companies, which have a reputation of being better employers in terms
of pay and conditions, one can imagine how a Brazilian company would behave.
To be fair to companies,
it should be pointed out that they face heavy overheads under Brazil's
labor laws, such as providing health insurance, travel costs, holiday
payments and even food baskets, which are generally said to double the
cost of the actual salary. They are also heavily taxed and, as interest
rates are frighteningly high, are unable to get access to credit. At the
same time, Brazil's pool of cheap labor and enormous market makes it a
tempting place for multinationals.
Doing it Your Own
Way
An alternative is
to work for yourself, officially or unofficially, although I would not
recommend the latter course. The black economy here is estimated at around
35 percent of the official economy. You just have to walk down a street
to see it at work in the shape of stalls selling everything from food
to CDs. Setting up a company is expensive and extremely bureaucratic.
However, it is a possibility for the foreigner who has a winning product
or service and is prepared to take a risk.
Brazil has one of
the highest rates of self-employed people in the world and companies are
used to dealing with them. Not only do these smaller companies offer tailor-made
services but they save the client company the cost of employing extra
labor. The main foreign immigrants who have arrived here in recent years
have been Koreans, Chinese, Bolivians and even Argentineans and Chileans.
The Koreans have cornered
much of the textiles market while the Chinese are still at the stage of
running cheap restaurants and shops selling knickknacks to hawking running
shoes in the streets. The Bolivians often work as sweated labor for the
Koreans while the Argentineans tend to be found working as Spanish teachers,
real estate agents or waiters. All these people are learning for themselves
that the streets of São Paulo are not paved with gold. Don't forget
there are hundreds of thousands of Brazilian working abroad—mainly
in Japan and the US—simply because they cannot earn enough here to
make a decent living.
These are just a few
hints which I hope may help anyone, particularly a professional, who is
thinking of coming here. As wages and prices change all the time I have
deliberately not given many specific figures. However, if you are interested
in checking our current salary levels, both the Estado de S. Paulo
and the Folha de S. Paulo newspapers publish detailed tables
covering a wide range of jobs in their Sunday issues. You can also get
more information on official government and industrial sites. Another
source is the labor research body, which can be found at www.dieese.org.br.
John Fitzpatrick
is a Scottish journalist who first visited Brazil in 1987 and has
lived in São Paulo since 1995. He writes on politics and finance
and runs his own company, Celtic Comunicações—
www.celt.com.br
- which specializes in editorial and translation services for Brazilian
and foreign clients. You can reach him at jf@celt.com.br
© John Fitzpatrick
2003
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