Facing rife unemployment, many young Portuguese professionals are emigrating to find fame and fortune in Portugal's former colonies. EPTV investigates in Mozambique.

Reporter: The Portuguese brain drain

With its caravels, Portugal colonised  Africa, Asia and South America.

In the crisis today, the Portuguese  are again leaving their country en masse

to go to Brazil, Angola and Mozambique,  former colonies, now booming economies.

EPTV followed these new young migrants  who are prepared to find their future

in the countries with the strongest  historical and cultural ties to Portugal.

João Carlos Nunes has worked  in Mozambique for two years.

He has a degree in business administration.

Unemployed in Portugal, João decided  to seek fame and fortune in Maputo in 2010

after he lost his job in the auto sector,  one of the first to collapse in the crisis.

I was unemployed and I started to think  about what I wanted to do in life.

As I had already wanted  to come here for a long time,

I stopped my unemployment benefits  for three months and I tried to move here.

My friends helped me find somewhere  to stay for two or three months.

That helped me to talk to people,  to land interviews.

the capital of a nation that is growing  at a dizzying pace, over 7% annually,

attracting engineers, agronomists, telecoms  experts and construction investors.

We have some very rough estimates  of the number of new immigrants.

The rate of people arriving has doubled.

The rate, not the number,  has more or less doubled since 2010.

In 2011 the country  cut the most jobs in Europe.

Youth unemployment is over 30% and there  are countless underemployed workers.

The situation is so critical that even the PM  has urged young people to emigrate.

Young people, in particular,  find themselves in dramatic situations.

Not just because of unemployment  but also underemployment.

Graduates and postgraduates  with jobs that pay €500 a month.

Young people don't need politicians  to tell them to emigrate,

they're telling it to themselves:  'I'm going to see what I can do in life,

We know it's a longstanding,  structural trend towards emigration.

We know that emigration has been  furthered by a series of circumstances,

by the presence of Portuguese or  Lusophone communities around the globe,

There is Portuguese infrastructure  in Brazil, Angola, Mozambique...

The constant departure of workers  to the former colonies

is likely to have harsh consequences  for the Portuguese economy and society.

In the 60s, the Portuguese  who emigrated

were unskilled country dwellers,  many of them illiterate,

and so their departure to find work  in France, in agriculture or construction,

Now we are losing a large number of  qualified people, some of the most qualified.

The number of migrants  who have university diplomas

Through this type of emigration  Portugal is losing a lot of its human capital.

It's a real drain that makes it even more  difficult to leave the crisis behind.