Since the 1974 Carnation Revolution, Portugal has had a long history of peaceful social protest. Portugal experienced its largest political rally since its revolution in response to proposed budgetary measures in 2012. Public workers, including nurses, doctors, teachers, aviation professionals, and public transportation workers organized peaceful demonstrations periodically in protest of insufficient economic support, low salary levels, and other measures.

Numerous labor reform packages aimed at improving productivity were implemented after the 2011 bailout, but overall labor productivity remains a challenge. The annualized monthly minimum wage increased stands at €823.

After the difficulties of the eurozone debt crisis, when many Portuguese migrated out of the country along with some resident migrants, net-migration became positive again in 2017 and has strengthened since. The largest communities of workers come from Brazil, Cape Verde, Romania, Ukraine, UK, China, France, Italy, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Nepal and India. In the Southern Algarve region, the tourism sector employs most of the migrant workers. Alentejo and the coastal regions of central Portugal, with their intensive agriculture sectors, host substantial Asian workers’ communities, especially from Bangladesh.

Employers are allowed to conduct collective dismissals linked to adverse market or economic conditions, or due to technological advancement, but must provide advance notice and severance pay. Depending on the seniority of each employee, an employer must provide between 15 to 75 days of advance notice, and pay severance ranging from 12 days’ to one month’s salary per year worked. Employees may challenge termination decisions before a Labor Court. Labor laws are uniformly applicable and enforced, including in Portugal’s foreign trade zone/free port in the Autonomous Region of Madeira.

Collective bargaining is common in Portugal’s banking, insurance, and public administration sectors. More information is available at the Directorate General for Labor Relations site.

Portugal has labor dispute resolution mechanisms in place through Labor Courts and Arbitration Centers. Labor strikes are not violent and of short duration. Labor laws are not waived in order to attract or retain investment.

Portugal is a member of the International Labor Organization (ILO), and has ratified all eight Fundamental Conventions as well as all four Governance (Priority) Conventions.

The Labor Code caps the work schedule at eight hours per day, and 40 hours per week. The public sector employee workweek, with certain exclusions, was capped at 35 hours in July 2016. Employees are entitled to at least 22 days of annual leave per year. Employers must pay employees a Christmas and vacation bonus, both equivalent to one month’s salary.

Gender pay gap inequality in Portugal worsened from 10.9 percent in 2019 to 11.4 percent in 2020, which is still better than the average EU difference (13 percent), according to Eurostat data . Portugal has shown progress in developing gender equality and gender mainstreaming policies, according to European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). The 2030 National Strategy on Gender Equality, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, established a plan to: promote gender equality; tackle violence against women and domestic violence; and, combat discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity and sexual characteristics.

Portugal’s Fraud Management and Economics Observatory estimates that the informal economy is worth about 27 percent of GDP, according to its last available analysis in 2015. The President of the Observatory said  in 2020 that the weight of the informal economy has likely “increased significantly” with the onset of the pandemic.