Finding work

Hey Iveta!

I'm Norm, I'm Scottish. Currently living in UK. My partner is Brazilian. I'm currently in the same situation.. fed up of UK and wanting to move back to Brazil. Also possible to buy a house outright only think I'm worried about is work so I would also be interested in any information anybody can provide.

Thanks in advance!

Hey Norm

Glad to hear from you. Hopefully we get some advice and tips on what to do.

Which part of Brazil does your partner come from?

I have been looking around at job sites etc but I am not really a professional in any particular field like engineer or architect or doctor etc so I really think i will struggle to find work. I have started thinking that I need to learn a new skill, get myself qualified and maybe work for myself when i get there.

Speak soon
Iveta

Hey Norm


Forgot to ask how was life in Brasilia?

Thanks
Iveta

Yeah I'm sure we will find some information!

My partner is from Bahia, when we lived there we lived in Brasilia for about 5 months then returned to the UK. While we were living there I wasn't working, we were just living off savings but I love the culture of Brazil and would love to move back permanently. Only problem is I can see how it is difficult to live there, difficult to get a job, everything is expensive ect ect..

But I don't want that to stop me, I would love to hear other people's story's and what road they went down to move and live in Brazil.

I'm a partner & Decorator to trade but unfortunately the painting trade in Brazil is very different to UK. So I would like to find a way of livin there, finding a job, opening a buisness. No idea but looking forward to heading other people's story's and advice!

Wish you all the best in your plans and keep in contact!

Norm! 😊

Amazing, I really enjoyed it! Like I said before its the culture I love the most about Brazil. Everybody is all for there family, very loving and caring people. I was very upset having to return to UK and leave that people behind but need must and unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees lol.. but yeah Brasilia is beautiful. I'm just back from Rio De Janerio that is also a beautiful place, I would love to live in Rio but after visiting  you can see how expensive everything really is. Where about are you planning to move to?

Norm

Well that is the big question.....WHERE?

My husband comes from a very small town called Petrolina De Goias about 1 hour drive from Brasilia I think and also around 45 mins from Goiania. Naturally he wants to stay in his town or Goiania but I like the beach This year in December we are going on a month holiday again and this time we will visit Santa Catarina state (Florianopolis and Balneario Camboriu) . My sister in law says that part of Brazil is safest and most developed. So we have to decide between Goias or down south on the beach. Like every Brasilian my husband wants to stay near family plus his father runs an agriculture business and he already knows what to do to make money....but I have to think what to do as well cause I'm not one to just sit and rely on husband for everything

I'm the same....I love the culture and warmth of Brazilian people, love the weather and the food and just the lifestyle. Here we are always home, it's cold and life is so much ,more boring and closed indoors. I'd like to enjoy life outdoors more with friends and have more fun so those are my reasons

There is absolutely no work in those small places....

If you want to work you will need to be in a bigger city.
Your only hope in the beginning will be teaching English and even that is not as easy
to get into as people say it is.
In smaller Brazilian cities you will teach 90% teenagers and if your Portuguese is not sharp they will start making fun of you in class.
At the moment the job market in Brazil is terrible, it's full on crisis, everything is expensive and there are no jobs. Of course where there's a will theres a way but unless you speak fluent Portuguese you will find most doors slamming shut in your face. Outside of Sao Paulo city Brazil is very poor and the salaries are SHOCKINGLY low and prices of goods is Obscenely high.

I don't mean to burst your bubble but I can say from experience you are in for a really tough ride to find your feet working here. Of course coming with a strong currency and a lot of savings can help to insulate you....this is good as often you will find the money you earn here is so pitifully little that you won't even want to bother getting out of bed.

Hi Stevefunk,

Thank you for your input. Do you live in Brazil and if so in which part?

I am studying Portuguese at the moment and also practice speaking the language at home with my husband. I am pretty sure I will have to open a business ( work for myself) as like you say there are no jobs in the small towns. I don't agree entirely with your statement that Brazil is poor outside Sao Paulo. Goias is a very wealthy state actually and if you look at house prices there, you will see they cost as much as a house in Sao Paulo or close!  On that note i will remain I little more positive than you

Iveta

Hey Iveta,

Sorry for the late reply been busy busy with work and my son. Hope all is well with you!

Yeah I feel the same myself in regards to the rubbish weather and being indoors all the time, it gets very boring and day to day.

I'm currently self employed, excellent buisness earning great money but it still isn't making me happy if you understand me? I'm constantly thinking about changing my life to Brazil.

My Brazilian friends say I'm crazy! I also agree with them, someone who lives in a country that can earn good money, plenty of work and things are not expensive would want to move to Brazil it is pretty crazy but I love Brazil. A life with everything you want and you are still not happy is something you need to change. Hence why I want to move to Brazil. My wife also understands me, she says herself that Brazil is not a great country in regards to money but she also understands you need to follow your dreams or you will regret it in the future. Money is not everything in this life.

Where in the UK are you living just now? Are you connected on Facebook or Instragram? I have loads of photos from my time in Brasilia and Rio De Janiero.

In regards to SteveFunks comment, I understand what your saying Brazil is a very difficult country in regards to money. Hence why I don't want to just throw myself out there, I was a plan before I head out. I could go there and live for 5-6 years no problem without having to work but after 5-6 years then what? That's why I want to have a plan before going out. I'm fluent in Portuguese. Thanks for your comment but I find it negative and not very useful. Like Iveta said we will still keep positive regardless to negitive comments!

Have a great day!

I live in a São Jose dos Campos , it is about an hour from São Paulo.
The quality of life here is pretty good, super safe, clean and green with a laid back pace of life but it can be a bit dull.....luckily there are nice beaches 1h30 mins from here.

I have been living in Brazil for two years now, speak almost fluent Portuguese.
There are nice things about living here but as we are talking about "Working" specifically I just feel I have to be honest and say that working here in Brazil sucks, mainly because of the ridiculously low salaries, high demands on workers and obscene prices.
I'm not saying there aren't other wealthier areas of Brazil, like Santa Caterina etc, but I'm just saying that as soon as you work outside of São Paulo city, like me even an hour away in a "wealthy" city the salaries drop anywhere from a third to half and people(well off people) are really cheap and careful with their money.
I've had 6 different jobs including working for myself over the last two year, often two jobs at the same time to try to make ends meet.
It's one thing to come to Brazil with a big amount of savings in a strong currency or a family run business to enter into, but if you just have to go out hit th streets and start looking for work to survive it's tough here....

Brazilians are weird with money too.....they will blow a lot of money on a baron Friday night, but doing anything possible to pay you the bare minimum for a service. My wife is Brazilian and runs her own business , but has also lived a long time out of Brazil and this drives her absolutely crazy.

The only thing I would not really worry about here is crime.....it's blown kind of out of proportion, especially by Brazilians themselves, I've always found Brazil to be a fairly safe place if you avoid the ghettos here. Of course you have to be vigilant and security conscious, but I would not let a fear of crime keep you stuck out in the middle of nowhere terrified to enter the big city.

Hey Norm,

Don't worry about the late reply buddy .....I am replying quick because I am all day on my Mac lol.....I have a call centre at home so pretty much online and on the phone all day.  I have sent you a Facebook friend request. Your photo of "I love Brasilia" helped to find you

I used to live in London for over 12 years working in the NHS and then moved to Grantham, Lincolnshire in 2013. Grantham is a small town and not much to do around here but life is cheap so we can afford more and save more.

I feel exactly the same as you do. We have stable jobs, earn good money and we can afford to buy nice stuff but still something is missing. It has been very difficult for us to make friends around here and the weather is always bad. I guess we miss fun, excitement, sun, adventure and most of all social life!!! Like you say life is not just about money! Most days I feel like life is passing us by and we are not living it....and how can we live it when 6-8 months of the year we spend indoors!!!

I understand what you mean about the Brazilian people who think we are crazy to want to move to Brazil as for many of them it's hard to make money there but I can tell you most of them have never lived outside Brazil and think here is lovely. I know many Brazilians who came to London and after 3-4 months returned home as they just could not cope with the weather and many other things.

In reference to Steve's post ....I don't like living in large cities. I much prefer a small quiet town maybe near to a big city. So I will have to think what to do! Also have been thinking to do something online which will allow me to live anywhere ...so i get paid through Paypal etc and not rely on a job in Brazil.  For example....jobs like digital marketing, web design etc....you can do those from your computer anywhere in the world and get paid!

What does your partner do if you don't mind me asking? I have never been to North of Brazil but i heard is lovely

Iveta

Hey Steve,

Thanks for your latest post. I actually know the place where you live. My sister in law lives in Sao Paulo but her husband's parents live in your town. I agree it is a nice little town and in my opinion very pretty.

In my situation, we rely on the fact that we will have money to buy a home and will have enough left maybe to live a year. Also my in laws have a massive house and if things go wrong can always stay with them for awhile. My husband does not worry too much about making money but i do

Now something very interesting you said about crime! You are the first person who says Brazil is not dangerous I am quite surprised to hear that and thank you for saying that as that was actually one of my biggest worries. The reason I want to stay in small town is just because I like more quiet ....I don't really like the traffic jams, too much noise and pollution I escaped from London for that reason.

What kind of business does she have if you don't mind me asking?

Iveta

Hey

One thing I will agree on, Living in Brazil is definately a million times better than living in England even with limited funds

I'm from South Africa.....now thats really a dangerous place, to me Brazil is really not that dangerous...you just have to be sensible, but in SJC it's really not uncommon to see single woman jogging in the middle of the night in the cities better neighbourhoods.

I think I have been begged for money like 5 times here in two hears, usually by happy go lucky guys with a big smile of their face.In South Africa the beggars are really aggressive....they are a bit more agressive in the North East.

Living in Brazil is nice, I really just meant to hit home the fact that the working culture here is totally different, unlike the UK there is Zero migrant workforce in Brazil. Zero, every worker  is Brazilian and as a result any type of foreigner in a work position is often treated initially with suspicion - not in a malicious way, but Brazilians have this weird Idea that no one from outside could ever competently understand how to deal with their country and culture. You can of course prove them wrong and be accepted
but all this can get quite draining after a while as you sometimes constantly have to prove yourself in each interaction day to day.....the general assumption usually is you are Gringo and will not understand how anything works, the language or anything thats going on around you.
There are exceptions of course, you can find every type of person in Brazil....I've met people who seem more British than Brazilian, who don't like football and those who say they hate Samba and Carnaval.

The only foreigners I know here work either as English teachers or as Engineers at Embra Air, where it is quite common. I actually do have another part time job as a SCUBA diving instructor here, which has been a great experience but it took about a year of "volunteer" working tagging along without pay etc to be able to actually handle everything in Portuguese. But but now it's great and I'm planning to do it full time from July. From all the research I've done I've never ever heard of another non - Brazilian diving instructor in Brazil, although I'm sure there must have been some.
But through this work I got to have the best experiences of bonding with people here, meeting like minded people and getting off the usual route of english teacher, which I still do at a good school for now.

My wife just has a one person company doing corporate and online English classes.
To get the corporate work you have to have a CPNJ so that companies and employees can declare the lessons for tax purposes etc...

As for the North East which someone mentioned.....I personally love the North East, but it is a tough place to live......the beaches are tropical and the water can be warm and clear almost like the Caribbean in some places. But things are very run down, as soon as you move off the main street everything looks like a favela.
The people can also be quite difficult to relate to for people with a more European Mentality.... While people from Sao Paulo and below are really quite European in Attitude and Culture, the North East is very African and it's difficult to really sit down and have a conversation with the people there as their way of relating to each other is just so different....I like the people there a lot though, but I think it would be hard to work for them or really have close friends there......actually to tell you the truth I've discussed this a lot with the Paulistas ....there views are a lot more extreme than mine.

Thats another funny thing with Brazil.....it can be really Regionalistic state to state
Like a kind of State to State Nationalism
I don't know if you remember the film city of god, but there was a scene where they hitch a ride with a Paulista and they like:"ok, lets ron this guy, he's a Paulista".
It's not uncommon to have Paulistas tell you how much they hate Rio and the  dirty Cariocas, how they will always tell you how they will try to take advantage of you....everyone hates the North East etc and so it goes....of course I take all this with a pinch of Salt but the longer I spend here the more I hear about this kind of thing and realize these people take it quite seriously.

Remember this is a thread entitled "finding work".....and finding work in Brazil is a M*ther F&cker!

Now if it was titled fun in the sun in Brazil.....well thats a different story
I've posted a few turtle diving pics at Ilhabela last sunday to show its not all doom and gloom...also uploaded some pictures of my Kayak trip to Ilha Tamanduá
Sao Paulo coastline is dotted with these beautiful deserted islands that not even the locals know about ....we go out there with our inflatable kayak..
These are just day trips from SJC.....so it's not too bad....living in the UKn you would have to take an international trip to see this stuff

South Africa has beautiful nature too, but no Islands to explore

Hey Steve,

I really enjoyed reading your latest post so thank you

I should have entitled my post "Living in Brazil"  so then we can talk about fun, sun, work and Brazilian culture. I think we are already doing that anyway so I am grateful for your input.

Some days I wish I was an engineer or architect or doctor lol.....then I will not wonder what to do in Brazil. I did a degree in English which serves no purpose to be honest and it is quite generic.  I have thought of doing the Cambridge CELTA course so I can teach English in Brazil but to be honest I don't really know whether I will enjoy teaching.  Can I ask what is a CPNJ? The kind of business your wife has is really nice as you can live anywhere in Brazil and teach online right? That is the kind of thing I want to do....something online which does not restrict you to live in 1 particular place.

My ideas so far :

If i was to try teaching, maybe I would teach English for Medicine. I have worked in NHS (National Health Service) here in the UK for over 5 years. I am pretty sure there are many doctors and nurses in Brazil who want to work abroad and need to learn English. I wonder what your wife thinks about that? I would love to hear her views

If not teaching then I will try and do something else online which will allow me to earn from anywhere. Have thought of Digital Media, Photoshop, Marketing etc.


England is good for making money but it's hard to have a nice lifestyle because it's cold and we spend a lot of time indoors. I thought it was just me but I can see Norm also shares the same views and he is Scottish My husband says we don't like England because we are foreigners but trust me even some English people don't like England

I best be cracking on with my Portuguese! I am using Duolingo program (not sure if you have heard of it) and it really helps. I married my husband in 2011 and by now I should be speaking fluent Portuguese but he was really focused on learning English so I had to speak English with him and I never really learned much Portuguese. After 2 long holidays in Brazil I learned the basics but really not enough to have a conversation. So at the moment my priority is studying Portuguese

Iveta

By the way I could not open your link on Facebook.

Try this site for Portuguese https://www.semantica-portuguese.com/
you have to pay a small fee each month but it really is the best learning material that exists for learning Brazilian Portuguese as there are not many resources.

CPNJ is basically a small registered company you get a CPNJ no which is like a CPF but for business and you can then issue invoices
You need this number to issue an official Brazilian invoice, it's kind of complicated and you do the invoicing through a government website
As I said many corporates will require this as proof of service rendered.

I never thought I would teach English either, but I had to resort to it....
There are only a few schools which pay "decently" and by decent I mean like R$4000-00 + benefits per month, really not that much.....at most schools you will struggle to make R$2000-00. To give you some idea the school Wizards (one of the cheapest low level schools) wanted to hire me in the beginning working 3pm til 9pm everyday and 8 - 1 on Saturday for a salary of R$1200 PER MONTH!  are these people serious? it's like R$12 per hour or something.

Private classes are the way to go money wise, but it's hard to build up a steady supply of students and they each give you a lot of headaches, so it takes quite a lot of dedication.
Specialist classes in medical field could be a good idea.
A big market is preparing students to take Cambridge English certificates
CELTA and DELTA are highly regarded certificates of teaching here in Brazil

To tell you the truth teaching English to classes is not the problem, you  get used to that and it actually becomes quite enjoyable. The problem is the Bureaucracy and extra demands of the schools. I have worked for 4 of these schools now from the worst to the best and they all are quite demanding in terms of time, and dedication and it gets more demanding at the better schools. Tasks can involve: phoning every student and parents to get them to re-enroll, traveling to São Paulo for training, spending 30 extra mins per day standing at the gates supervising kids without pay(porter time), endless meetings and evaluations etc etc

Hey Steve,

Sorry for late reply

Yes I will have a look at the Semantica page and see how it goes. Teaching is definitely something I will have to look into as a starting point. I have a degree in English Language and Literature and also love to proofread so I might do some online editorial/proofreading jobs + teaching. I also think preparing students for the English Cambridge certificates will be very enjoyable for me.

My only worry is that English is not my mother tongue. I am good at grammar and my English is fluent but you can still hear my East European accent. It is not that strong but you can tell I am not a native speaker of English. I wonder if that would be a problem! I have a Brazilian friend who took the CELTA course in UK and returned to Brazil. She teaches English in college in Goiania and is very happy. She says it is not a problem if English is not my native tongue as long as I am fluent and have the qualification.

What do you think?

Iveta