Portugal news in English.

Subscribe

The Portugal Brief
Jobs

Portugal Is Short of Health Staff, Teachers and Builders but Has Too Many Managers and Assemblers, an OECD Skills Map Shows

The OECD's new skills map puts Portugal's health professionals, teachers, ICT specialists, building and electrical trades and drivers in large shortage, while managers, office staff, assemblers and food preparation assistants are in surplus.

The Portugal Brief 2 min read

Written in English, with the help of AI tools, from the Portuguese sources named in this story. How we work

Portugal Is Short of Health Staff, Teachers and Builders but Has Too Many Managers and Assemblers, an OECD Skills Map Shows
Photo: Draceane / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Health professionals, teachers, ICT specialists, building workers, electricians and drivers are among the jobs Portugal finds hardest to fill, according to the OECD's new Mapping Skill Shortages in OECD Countries report. The same data show surpluses for managers, office staff, assemblers and food preparation assistants. For anyone looking for work in Portugal, or retraining, it is a useful map of where employers are struggling to recruit.

The report, published in October, came back into the news on 14 November when Euronews found that teaching, health and ICT are the hardest occupations to fill across Europe. Portugal's own row in the OECD tables follows that pattern closely.

Where Portugal is short of workers

The OECD sorts each occupation group into five bands, from "large shortage" to "large surplus". For Portugal, using 2024 data, the groups in large shortage are:

  • health professionals, and health associate professionals such as medical technicians;
  • teaching professionals;
  • ICT professionals;
  • legal, social and cultural professionals;
  • science and engineering associate professionals;
  • protective services workers;
  • building and related trades workers;
  • electrical and electronic trades workers;
  • drivers and mobile plant operators.

A small shortage shows for science and engineering professionals, personal care workers, metal and machinery trades, skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers, cleaners and helpers, and numerical and stock recording clerks.

Where there are more workers than jobs

At the other end, Portugal shows a large surplus of managers, business and administration professionals, information and communications technicians, personal services workers, assemblers, agricultural and manufacturing labourers, food preparation assistants and some clerical support workers. A small surplus shows for general clerks, customer service clerks, sales workers and plant and machine operators.

How the OECD measures it

The OECD Skills for Jobs indicator does not count vacancies. It combines six labour market signals for each occupation: wage growth, employment growth, the unemployment rate, growth in online job postings, growth in hours worked and the share of workers who are underqualified for their job. For Portugal, the data come from the European labour force survey, EU income statistics and online job ads. The report warns that its results can differ from national assessments because the data and methods differ.

The report also notes a wider skills gap: in the OECD's 2023 adult skills survey, around 40 percent of adults in Portugal scored at the two lowest levels in literacy, numeracy and problem solving, against around 10 percent in Finland.

What it means for you

  • If you work in health, teaching, ICT, construction or electrical trades, demand in Portugal is strong relative to other occupations.
  • Work has been the main route into Portugal for new arrivals: most new permits in 2025 went through work, the OECD reported earlier.
  • If you are in an occupation in surplus, such as office administration or assembly work, expect more competition for each opening, and consider training in a shortage field.

Read next