Mr Obama, the jobs are all in Brazil

As president Obama arrived in Brazil today, the BBC ran a feature explaining how Brazil is becoming increasingly attractive to Americans seeking work.

Say that again? Citizens of the richest and most influential country on earth seeking out job opportunities in Brazil. Isn’t job migration supposed to be the other way around?

The developed and affluent world had the furthest to fall when the world economic system crashed in 2008 and the US and Europe are still barely recovering. Several European countries are on the brink of default. Portugal is technically bankrupt and yet is just clinging on to the economic lifeline offered by European neighbors. Ireland has already fallen into the abyss.

Our twentieth century idea of wealthy and poor nations is being entirely redefined. The idea of a ‘third world’ sounds increasingly anachronistic when Europeans are starving and reliant on the state for support.

Take a look at the economy in the US. GDP did not grow at all in 2008. It contracted by 2.6% in 2009, and grew around 2.7% in 2010. Now look at Brazil. There was around 5.1% growth in 2008. It was just into negative territory in 2009 with -0.2%, but back to a whopping 7.5% in 2010. *

One in ten of all Americans is officially unemployed and of course, this only includes the official definition of unemployed – those who register for whatever benefits they can claim.

It is starting to dawn on some in the US and Europe that the twenty-first century will not be a repeat of the American hegemony of the twentieth. This century will see the BRICs rise and become more important for a number of reasons, not least access to minerals, energy, and the sheer number of people.

For Americans, Brazil is the only BRICs member that is culturally compatible. Sure, the language is different, but the lifestyle and values are similar. So it’s no surprise that some are looking south of Florida for career opportunities.

IT Decisions is focused mainly on IT and hi-tech services and this is already a booming market. It may bring more and more foreign workers into Brazil as IT companies here struggle to find technically skilled employees who can also interact with colleagues overseas – particularly using English.

According to data from Brasscom, in their 2010 overview of the IT market in Brazil, IT spending in 2009 reached $31.8bn, an increase of 17% compared to the previous year. Revenues from software and IT services amounted to $15.5bn. During this year, exports of software and IT services totaled $3bn.

$3bn of IT exports does not sound much when compared to India, which is about twenty times as large, but consider this, in 2005 Brazil exported just $300m of IT services.

Growth in the IT market in Brazil is phenomenal.

If you are Brazilian and can use English then all the great technology opportunities are right here on your doorstep, not staring at some electronic tumbleweed blowing down fifth avenue in New York. There is no need to seek out work in the US or Europe when the action is right here at home.

As Robert Janssen said to IT Decisions in a recent interview, the next Google won’t come from the US, it will be created in Brazil.

* All economic GDP estimates from the CIA world factbook.

Photo by Ludovic Bertron licensed under Creative Commons.