Overview

The Brazilian workforce has a fantastic education system at its foundation.  There are many skilled workers and a growing number of technology, engineering, and science professionals.  Although the country has many issues that are pressing that will damage the productivity of the workforce, such as poverty and infrastructure problems, there are many things the country has in its favor.

Outsourcing

Brazil has been considered one of the better countries for US companies to outsource software development. Part of this is due to the great education of the IT professionals in Brazil. Brazilian programmers have a reputation for following strict programming processes that are often skipped or overlooked by many US firms. Adhering to these processes creates a more robust process with detailed documentation and commented code. (10)

Although Brazil has some strong points with regard to software development, there are some major drawbacks as well. Perhaps the biggest drawback to selecting Brazil as your outsourcing location is the cost. Brazilian software programmers are more expensive than Indian or Chinese programmers. There is also a much smaller pool of fluent English speakers.

Education

Just recently, Brazil has started to add technology related programs to primary and secondary education. The University of Sao Paulo offers two programs related to technology. One is a continuing education program similar to our vocational schools in the US. Another is a full university program. Both of these programs are geared for the poor and wealthy students of Brazil, but from my understanding of Brazil I assume most of the students would be rich rather than poor. (11)

Brain Drain

The term "brain drain" refers to migrations of highly skilled workers from one country to another. This is most common in developing nations where the elite workers go to a fully developed nation to work for much higher wages with a better standard of living.

In my research about Brazil's IT workforce. I found many articles talking about US companies recruiting skilled IT professionals from Brazil. An example of this brain drain is when a US multi-national recruits very skilled research and development engineers to work in Brazilian branch of the company. They are later transferred overseas to the US. There is also evidence of direct recruitment, where a US company will go to Brazil to find skilled labor and bring them over directly to the US. This is a difficult situation for Brazil to be in. The country wants to educate its workers as much as possible about technology. But while these professionals are being educated they are learning the skills needed to leave the country for a better pay off in a developed nation. The hope is that not all of the educated citizens will leave the nation in search of a better lifestyle, but will stay in the country to do research for Brazilian firms.

Women in Technology

Brazilian women, like most women around the world, have come a long way in the past twenty years. Brazilian women are more likely than men to go to University and have almost an equal literacy rate. When speaking of technology, engineering, and other sciences only 34% of those fields are comprised of women. Although this number seems low, it is very common for women to avoid technology and science related fields. In the US, we see a similar dispersion of women in technology versus other fields of study. The first lady of Brazil, Mrs. Cardoza, has been a major advocate of increasing technological access across the country. She is particularly interested in the role of women in the Internet. (12)

Sources

(10) Horowitz, Alan. “Brazil: It's a sleeping giant with a tradition of high-quality software.”, Computer World http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outsourcing/story/0,10801,84869,00.html. September 15, 2003.

(11) Tigre, Paulo. “Brazil Meets the Global IT Challenges”, Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations , http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1068&context=crito. 

(12) “Brazil: Gender Best Practices”, Cisco Learning , http://gender.ciscolearning.org/bestpractices/latinamerica/brazil.html. 2001.