“There is an oversupply, according to information we receive or hear, sometimes unofficially,” disclosed Luís Pestana, who has resided in China for ten years, referring to the high youth unemployment rates in the country, which particularly impact foreign language students.
“It is a widespread problem,” the Portuguese national highlighted, recalling that when he began working in China, his “students found jobs even before finishing their courses,” but opportunities are now “scarce.”
The earliest degree in Portuguese language offered by the People’s Republic of China was established in 1961 at the Beijing Foreign Studies University (‘Beiwai’). For nearly two decades, this course was the only one of its kind in the country, with just one more emerging in Shanghai by the end of the 1990s.
However, teaching Portuguese in mainland China experienced rapid growth over the past 25 years, fueled by the evolution of trade relations between China and Lusophone countries, which in 2024 amounted to over $225 billion (almost 208 billion euros), increasing the demand to train Chinese workers for collaborating with CPLP countries.
Currently, excluding Macau and Hong Kong, there are over 40 Chinese universities offering degrees in Portuguese, and more than twenty have Portuguese as an optional subject, according to data provided by IPOR to Lusa. In total, there are over 4,300 students learning Portuguese in mainland China.
Highlighting the strategic focus of the Chinese Government on more technical fields, including law, economics, or engineering, at a time when the Asian country is in a technological competition with the United States, Luís Pestana predicted a “dramatic readjustment” on the supply side of language education.
“Some departments may close, as they have indeed ceased to be necessary or strategically important, while others will undergo a process of adaptation and redirect their courses to different areas,” he predicted.
For recent Portuguese language graduates heading to Beijing or Shanghai, the country’s two main metropolises and among the world’s most expensive cities to live in, the starting salary ranges from 7,000 to 8,000 yuan (900 to 1,000 euros).
A simultaneous interpreter of Chinese-Portuguese and vice versa can earn up to 10,000 yuan (1,300 euros) per day of work, usually accompanying business delegations or official visits, but this is an occasional task performed only by the most experienced professionals.
In Angola or Mozambique, an interpreter and translator working for one of the hundreds of Chinese companies operating there in infrastructure construction, the energy sector, or mining, received annually between 200,000 and 400,000 yuan (between 25,000 and 50,000 euros), according to Lusa’s estimates based on job offers posted on Chinese portals.
“These types of opportunities are not the same and appear in smaller numbers,” said the IPOR representative, adding that many Portuguese students end up following career paths “completely different” from their field of study.
Luís Pestana also pointed out the “very profound” impact that the development of artificial intelligence systems is having on the language services market.
“For texts with a more practical, technical purpose, the reality is that not as many translators will be needed,” he noted.
“And that is also important because it significantly influences young people’s choices: they end up questioning the added value of learning a language when DeepSeek or ChatGPT can perform a perfect translation,” he explained.
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