Portugal’s disgruntled Facebook generation, inspired by a pop song, marched in a dozen cities to vent its frustration at grim career prospects amid an acute economic crisis that shows no sign of abating.
About 30,000 people, mostly in their 20s and 30s, crammed into Lisbon’s main downtown avenue on Saturday, called onto the streets by a social media campaign that harnessed a broad sense of disaffection. Local media reported thousands more attended simultaneous protests in 10 other cities nationwide.
A banner at the front of the Lisbon march said: “Our country is in dire straits.” Another said: “We are the future.”
Photo: Reuters
The Lisbon march was festive and raucous, featuring brass bands, drum combos and small children with balloons. -Middle-aged parents also turned out.
Portugal, western Europe’s poorest country, is producing the best-qualified generation in its history, thanks to big investments in education, but after a decade of feeble economic growth and a huge debt burden that has forced the government to enact crippling austerity measures, Portugal’s economy is unable to deliver the opportunities that trained young people are seeking.
The jobless rate stands at a record 11.2 percent and half the unemployed are under 35. In the third quarter of last year, 68,500 college graduates were idle — a 6.5 percent increase on the same quarter the previous year, according to the National Statistics Institute.
Like Greece and Ireland, other debt-heavy European countries, analysts say Portugal is on the verge of needing an international bailout that would prevent its financial collapse, but doom it to more years of recession.
“People’s well-being has taken second place to financial matters,” said Luis Santos, a 28-year-old out of work since graduating from Lisbon University three years ago.
Most of his old college friends also are finding it hard to get on the career ladder.
“It’s hard to come across anyone who’s happy about their prospects,” he said.
Portugal’s youth isn’t just angry at unemployment, but at “underemployment” — low paid, dead-end jobs beneath their levels of qualification — which leaves them stuck at home with their parents into their 30s.
Goncalo Montenegro, 45, was at the Lisbon march with his 14-year-old son. He works as a salesman, but said he is worried about his son’s future.
“We’re passing on this mess and our debt to the next generation. We have to find a different path,” he said.
Four college graduates in their 20s were inspired to organize the unprecedented protests after a pop song struck a chord with their despairing generation.
The song, called What a Fool I am by Portuguese band Deolinda, was an unexpected hit in January, even though it had yet to be released. An amateur video of a concert performance of the song posted on YouTube went viral as it set a generation’s simmering grievances to music.
The song’s lyrics, including the lines: “I can’t go on like this, this situation’s dragged on for too long,” built into a battle cry.
Joao Labrincha, a 27-year-old unemployed graduate from Coimbra University, said he and three friends took a spontaneous decision to organize the marches after seeing the video.
“We realized that lots of people are unhappy. It wasn’t just us,” Labrincha said.
Within weeks, thousands had signed up to their Facebook page and commented on their blog.
The protest’s manifesto said it wasn’t targeting the country’s embattled government, though many banners at the Lisbon march chided politicians. The demonstration’s aim was to make people aware they have to pull together to change the course of the country.
“We are protesting so that all those to blame for our current uncertainty — politicians, employers and even ourselves — might unite and quickly change this situation, which has become intolerable,” the manifesto said.
After contracting in 2009, Portugal is forecast to record a double-dip recession this year.
The country’s current -economic plight stems from Portugal’s inability to generate wealth while amassing massive public and private debt to finance its western European lifestyle.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
RSS