Brazil?!

[Roland Beinert]

My dad is insisting that I should try to find a job in Brazil, even though I don’t know Portugese and probably would not have enough money to move there. He says it’s developing quickly and has a relatively good economy. I’m young, single and enjoy traveling, so I am willing to move overseas. And he’s right that the economy there is doing well. Has anyone found work there? Would it really be easy to find a landscape architecture job there? I haven’t seen any jobs in Brazil advertised anywhere. I’m not even sure where to look.

[Anonymous]

Interesting, I was recently wondering about what kind of opportunities were down there, but the ads I saw were in Portuguese.

 

It seems like with the booming economy, redevelopment and the Olympics more LAs would be going there as opposed to China. Whose doing the work?  

[Roland Beinert]

I’m betting all the work for the Olympics is being done by AECOM or some other big company.

[Anonymous]

You’re probably right, but it seems like they’d still need “staff up” with waves of LAs (civils and architects too) to meet the demand. Maybe it’s a metric thing and the mega firms are hiring unemployed European design professionals instead of Yanks.

[Roland Beinert]

I’ll have to check whether there’s a group of Brazilian LA’s on land8. Maybe they can educate us on this.

[landplanner]

Roland:

This might not lead you anywhere closer to a job prospect in Brazil, but it is worth a multi-level Google search. Even though the nation of Portugal is in pretty sorry economic shape itself, chances are they have a national version of ASLA. If I were a Portugal based firm , I would have opened an office presence many year ago in order to keep my doors open in Portugal. Looking into that might lead somewhere or nowhere, Just a contributing thought.  You may know by now, I’m working again in China. I would much rather be in Rio or Sao Paulo.

[Chupacabra]

My MiL is from Sao Paulo.  She really wants us to spend a few years down there so the kids can learn Portugese.  She’s connected so who knows.

It sounds like it is booming, and there’s an olympics and a World Cup coming up (I believe), so there’ll be plenty of bubble work for the next 4-6 years. 

[Tosh K]

They’re supposed to hit their sweet crude reserves this year (hence the backing to get the Olympics and the WC); rumor has it that their reserves may be greater than what the Saudi’s had, so that’s a lot of potential cash to be spent.  Some of the big boys have already been maneuvering to get work down there, so we’ll see.  Wouldn’t hurt to start learning the language.

[Roland Beinert]

Some things I’ve found out:
Americans and Europeans have been moving over there for some time, according to this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/world/americas/13brazil.html?page…
There seems to be a bit of a brain-drain thing going on. Well-educated Americans with degrees from Harvard and other ivy league schools have left the US for Brazil. I guess finding a cheap place to live would be hard, but salaries might be better.
Landscape architects are called arquitectos paisagistas in Portuguese. I’m pretty sure this is the website for the Association of Brazilian Landscape Architects: http://www.abap.org.br/

[nca]

For what its worth we get an influx of ‘Brazillionaires’ every winter in aspen. They are typically very well-off. From what Ive heard they love to shop here in the states for deals if that tells you anything.

[landplanner]

Here is something I found that as far as statistical data goes, this is probably a fairly reliable and recent indicator because it comes from a fairly credible economic and global affairs journal, the Economist.  Still, it does not tell you what kind of jobs these countries are having a hard time “filling”. I am a little skeptical for two clear reasons

• The United States is listed third (I have run across business and employment related articles for our country that have been targeting this side of the employment story -that specialized jobs (think high-tech machinists) that the pool of qualified applicants is a shallow one; and
• The country I am currently an expat landscape architect in, China, is in the lower third of the list. Jobs in at the broader range of the design profession, by comparison to the USA, in China and other countries  and major cities (Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong (part of China)) have been bountiful, until this last economic quarter. The global recession has finally reached China and India. I have no idea what the case is for Brazil currently.

On the reliability side, this bar graph shows Spain, Italy, Britain and Greece in the lower and bottom tier, and for those of us keeping track of continuing unraveling of the economic crisis in the Eurpoean Union, this confirms that.Last time I checked Spain and Greece had unemployment  of 25% and 30% respectively. File that under “It could and is worse elsewhere”.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the post. Great food for thought.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

We have a very high Brazilian immigrant population on Cape Cod. Many have gone back home, for what it is worth.

[Trace One]

seems like you should get the job first, Roland. I have often moved without a job, and it is not fun. Recently I have moved WITH a job, and it is a lot better. Why stop at Brazil, if you are willing to go abroad? Seems like Dubai and China are pretty  hot (literallly and figuratively..unfortunately)..

Or even Canada, for that matter – perhaps less of a culture shock. But I would get the job first, and then move..Seems obvious, but it is advice I have often not taken. I moved to Ca. without a job and it took me a year, spent a lot of savings, to get anything – couldn’t even get hired for retail..(didn’t try waitressing, I admit..too much of that, already…although I am probably better at that than at Microstation!).

[Roland Beinert]

That’s true, Trace. I’d never move overseas without a job. I may move to Seattle without a job if I can’t find anything by the end of the summer, though. I’m living in the tiny town of Moscow, ID now, because that’s where the university is. But now that I’ve graduated, there’s really no point in staying in a place where I’m not likely to find a job. Experience has taught me that it’s better to get a job in a large city, since even cities the size of Reno and Boise only support a few LA offices. Seattle is the closest large city, and has lot’s of LA offices to beg at.

Brazil would definitely be too expensive to move to without a job, anyway. So the question is how to find jobs there.

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