Unemployment in the Algarve is higher than elsewhere in Portugal. Nonetheless, beach bar and hotel owners are still looking for workers at the moment for the peak season.
Farmers further inland are likewise facing a shortage of workers for the harvest — and say they are only coping thanks to seasonal workers from Eastern Europe. Despite painful cuts in government benefits, many unemployed people still prefer to live on welfare. A new cut was recently rejected by the constitutional court in addition to other austerity measures. Portuguese people say the government has applied the brakes too harshly. For more go to

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