Over the weekend, the Portuguese Prime Minister pledged to the Government to do more in increasing permanent staff levels in the healthcare sector after reports last week suggested that some temporary workers had become victims of wage dumping, earning less than €4 an hour.

Passos Coelho said there had been a “perverse” dependency on employment agencies to provide staff into the National Health Service (Serviço Nacional de Saúde). The Social Democrat, speaking at a party conference, had been confronted by allegations of wage dumping in the country’s national health service.

The Prime Minister spoke of “structural problems” in the country where employment agencies provide resources on a temporary basis although the need of staff was a permanent one. He said employment agencies should mainly be used to supply staff for relatively short spells. But he emphasised that where the need for staff was a permanent one, the use of employment agencies was bordering the “perverse.”

This comes at a time when the troubled country needs to cut €1.2 billion off its budget deficit by 2013 as part of an arrangement with the European Union and International Monetary Fund. Portugal is suffering from a high unemployment rate and the Prime Minister recently urged young people to look abroad for work.