# Work for retirees



## Pam2017 (Apr 20, 2016)

My husband and I feel too young to not work. I think I'll be writing and maybe offering my hypnotherapy services to the English speaking expat community. But, my husband is already feeling a little lost at the thought of not working his normal 12 hour days. What type of opportunities are there for volunteerism, community involvement, teaching and the like? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

Pam2017 said:


> My husband and I feel too young to not work. I think I'll be writing and maybe offering my hypnotherapy services to the English speaking expat community. But, my husband is already feeling a little lost at the thought of not working his normal 12 hour days. What type of opportunities are there for volunteerism, community involvement, teaching and the like? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?


Precious little. Especially for people who don't speak fluent Portuguese.

The unfortunate truth is that most if not all of Portugal has a huge unemployment problem especially with the older generation.


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## Maggy Crawford (Sep 18, 2010)

I have to agree with TM. I have read of other like minded people who came to Portugal with ideas of volunteering and community involvement but their ideas were rejected by the authorities who say they prefer to do things their own way. Fluent Portuguese will be a prerequisite for anyone trying to work in any way.


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## Strontium (Sep 16, 2015)

Pam2017 said:


> My husband and I feel too young to not work. I think I'll be writing and maybe offering my hypnotherapy services to the English speaking expat community. But, my husband is already feeling a little lost at the thought of not working his normal 12 hour days. What type of opportunities are there for volunteerism, community involvement, teaching and the like? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?


Maybe you could use you skills and innate abilities on your husband so he'd be sufficiently fluent in Portuguese to compete with the unemployed locals and offer his services for free. As in this regime 

Language Learning - Hypnotherapy in Portugal

Portugal is a wonderful place to live, the people are genuine and many would not understand the expression "...I feel too young not to work..." for obvious reasons.


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## Pam2017 (Apr 20, 2016)

travelling-man said:


> Precious little. Especially for people who don't speak fluent Portuguese.
> 
> The unfortunate truth is that most if not all of Portugal has a huge unemployment problem especially with the older generation.


He's interested in contributing to the community and giving back rather than taking a job away from a local. Just not sure if there is a way to do that. I can see him doing something like coaching kids in an after school sports programs which would otherwise not exist except for volunteers. Is there anything like that?


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## Pam2017 (Apr 20, 2016)

Maggy Crawford said:


> I have to agree with TM. I have read of other like minded people who came to Portugal with ideas of volunteering and community involvement but their ideas were rejected by the authorities who say they prefer to do things their own way. Fluent Portuguese will be a prerequisite for anyone trying to work in any way.


Thanks for weighing in. Well, we can certainly spend some time learning the language.


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## travelling-man (Jun 17, 2011)

A significant number of people come to Portugal and hope they can start some kind of business, often in things like alternative therapies etc but many fail to appreciate that by not speaking Portuguese they're ruling themselves out of something like 85% of their market & if that's not enough of a problem they also have to compete with all the others that have similar aspirations & challenges. 

The good news is there are several things you can do to fill your time. Buy a quinta for example and you'll always have something to do whether it's prune trees, cut grass, look after livestock etc....... or you can always spend the long hot, beautiful summer days trying to perfect the dark art of converting vinho tinto into uric acid with your friends.


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