AIMA Puts Its Two-Year Staffing Gain at 17 Percent, and the Migration Technicians' Union Counters With a 19 Percent Exit Rate

The Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo (Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum), better known as AIMA, told the public this week that its workforce has grown by 17 percent. The Sindicato dos Técnicos de Migração (Migration Technicians' Union) replied within hours that 19 percent of staff walked out of the same building over the same period, so the real balance is negative.

Both statements cover the two years from July 2024 to July 2026. Neither side published a single absolute number.

What the agency said

AIMA's communiqué records "significant growth in its human resources," representing "an effective reinforcement of 17 percent across the institution as a whole," and calls it "a decisive step in consolidating AIMA's operational capacity." It then says the growth is "especially significant" at AIMA, EPE, the arm dedicated to technological modernisation, "which recorded an increase of 35 percent in the Human Resources Department." That sentence is worth reading twice: the showcase figure for the digital transformation unit is a headcount rise inside a human resources department. September projections, the release adds, put overall growth near 20 percent and AIMA, EPE at 48 percent.

The numbers AIMA publishes elsewhere

The agency does publish hard figures, just not in press releases. Its Plano de Atividades 2026 (2026 Activity Plan), dated 15 December 2025, sets out the establishment table in full:

• 1,286 authorised posts for 2026, against 976 for 2025, an increase of 310.
• Técnico Superior posts rise from 360 to 580, and Assistente Técnico posts from 410 to 490.
• AIMA, EPE gains 10 IT specialist posts, from 30 to 40. Those 40 are its entire authorised establishment.
• Every other line is unchanged, including all 81 management posts.

The 2026 budget is 97.4 million euros, of which 39.8 million euros is staff cost.

Two things follow. A 48 percent rise at AIMA, EPE is measured against a base of a few dozen people, because the plan describes the EPE as still "developing the procedures necessary for it to begin operating." And an authorised post is not a person: the plan promises recruitment "throughout the financial year" precisely because those posts were empty when it was written.

The union's sharper claim

The STM's answer is not really about the 17 percent. Its charge is about retention. "A 17 percent increase in intake, without disclosing how many remain after the six-month consolidation period, does not describe operational reality," the union said, warning against "decontextualised percentages that create an artificial perception of growth."

Its own estimate, drawn from member reports rather than payroll data, is that fewer than 2 percent of new arrivals are still there after six months. Treat that as a union estimate, not a measurement. The underlying point is testable, and AIMA did not address it: every departure "takes with it years of accumulated experience, knowledge of processes, legislation and practices." Lusa asked the agency what the new hires have done to the backlog and was still waiting for an answer.

What this means for expats

• Headcount is not your metric. What moves your file is decision throughput, and AIMA set its own 2026 targets in the same plan.
• Those targets are specific. A 50 percent cut in pending golden visa and family reunification cases, with 75 percent as the stretch value; 75 percent of renewals and new grants decided inside the legal deadline; contact form requests answered within 45 days.
• Churn is why the same question gets different answers. Keep your own paper trail, with dates and reference numbers.
• The recruitment is real. Three hundred new posts across two grades is a genuine expansion, and the competitions are published in the Diário da República and on the Bolsa de Emprego Público.

Both statements can be true at once. AIMA can have hired more people than two years ago while losing enough of them to leave the queue where it was. The number that would settle it, staff actually in post on a given date, is the one neither party put on the table. It will appear in the agency's annual activity report, and it will be worth checking against this week's percentages.