Portugal Situation Report Wednesday 10th August 2022

Good afternoon – We are now 5 days into our new website covering the north of Portugal and already our membership has grown to over 400. We thank all of you have joined and for inviting others as well.

Associação Safe Communities Portugal, was formed 10 years ago to help fulfill that purpose and since then has worked closely with government in the area of civil protection, both in preparedness of the population in the event of major fires and storms for example, as well as keeping people informed during major incidents.

Part of our work is communication through Facebook, which dates back to 2009; in fact before Safe Communities was formed. Since then it has developed considerably covering many different public safety and security topics, including major incidents such as: the Albufeira floods in 2015, the 2017 fires, Monchique fire 2018, Hurricane Leslie in 2018, Hurricane Lorenzo in 2019 and of course Covid-19, to name but a few. It has a current following of just over 55.000.

We constantly monitor and review the various threats that face the country, seeking the views of various experts and one of the threats is the impact of climate change. Whereas this affects the whole country, there is a need to give particular attention to the mainland northern areas.

This region is experiencing a more extreme climate, especially so in inland areas, with temperatures over 40C in summer and below zero in winter. It can be nearly 100% relative humidity one day, but below 10% a few days later. Hail storms with localised flooding are becoming more frequent. Over 70% of fires in July were in this region.

We therefore need to anticipate, plan ahead, be prepared and take initiatives to help address the threat. As a result on 6th August 2022 the association launched a Facebook group: “Safe Communities Northern Portugal Situation Alerts”.

Our Admins are Susan Wright and myself, with Moderators Fernanda Goncalves and Group Expert Carlos Trindade (civil protection)

I thank our volunteer in the north Susan Wright for helping to get this off the ground.

We also launched earlier today our Emergency Information and contacts poster which is designed to help you in an emergency. It can be a stressful time, so having information immediately available will help you in summoning help.

Simply download, fill in and place in a conspicuous place in your home, inside entrance doors for instance. If you family and friends staying with you, ensure they are aware. If you rent a property to clients also ensure they are aware.

Our thanks to ANEPC in supporting this initiative.

The poster can be downloaded here:

https://www.safecommunitiesportugal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Emergency-Information-and-Contacts-.pdf

Now that the weather has cooled down a bit, we must not let our guard down concerning both preventing and being prepared for rural fires. In this particularly so concerning the use of garden motorised machinery. The rules are published every day on our Facebook page so are easy to follow.

Lastly a big thank you to Mike Evans for his Article “Keeping Safe this Summer” in Tomorrow Algarve magazine (page 11). Some excellent tips there. It can be downloaded on line here https://tomorrowalgarve.com/august-2022-printed-version

With that please have a good and safe week

News

Number of aviation workers in EU hits lowest level in 14 years

Data released today by the EU’s statistical office reveal that, in the first three months of 2022, a total of 325,600 people were employed in the air transport sector in the EU, which is the “lowest number recorded in 14 years”.

“The Covid-19 crisis has had far-reaching impacts on the economy, with air transport in particular being hit hard by a decline in passenger numbers, [whereby] airlines and associated companies have reduced the number of their employees in compliance, with younger workers particularly affected”, notes Eurostat.

By age group, it was in the 15-39 age group that there was the greatest reduction in workers, from 204,400 in the first quarter of 2008 to 121,400 in the first quarter of 2022, a reduction of 83,000 in 14 years.

At the same time, there has been an increase — albeit a smaller one — in the 40-64 age group, from 170,500 in the first quarter of 2008 to 204,200 in the first quarter of 2022, an increase of 33,700 in 14 years.

Comparing the first quarter of 2022 with the pre-pandemic first quarter of 2019, the trend was similar, with a large decrease in aviation workers in the EU between 15 and 39 years old (from 184,900 to 121,400, minus 63,500) and a much smaller decline in employees aged 40 to 64 (from 225,500 to 204,200, minus 21,300).

By gender, men accounted for 58% of the workforce in the European air transport sector in the first quarter of 2022, similar to the first quarter of 2008 and a stable percentage over time, according to Eurostat.

Consumer Price Index

The year-on-year change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 9.1% in July, a rate 0.4 percentage points higher than the one observed in the previous month and the highest rate since November 1992, confirmed this Wednesday the INE .

“The year-on-year change in the CPI was 9.1% in July 2022, a rate 0.4 pp [percentage points] higher than that recorded in the previous month and the highest since November 1992”, informed the National Statistics Institute (INE). ), thus confirming the values ​​that had advanced in the quick estimate released on July 29.

The underlying inflation indicator (total index excluding unprocessed food and energy) also accelerated, registering a change of 6.2% (6% in June).

The change in the index relating to energy products was situated at 31.2%, that is, 0.5 percentage points lower than the value of the previous month, while the index referring to unprocessed food products showed a change of 13.2% (11.9% in June).

According to the statistical authority, the monthly variation of the CPI was null (0.8% in the previous month and -0.3% in July 2021), while the average variation of the last twelve months was 4.7% (4.1% in June).

As for the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), the year-on-year change in July was 9.4%, which represents the new highest value recorded since the beginning of the HICP series, in 1996.

This rate is 0.4 percentage points higher than in the previous month and 0.5 percentage points higher than the value estimated by Eurostat for the euro area.

Excluding unprocessed food and energy, the HICP registered a year-on-year change of 6.9% in July (6.6% in June), higher than the corresponding rate for the euro area (estimated at 5.0%), “keeping the markedly rising profile seen in recent months”, pointed out INE.

The HICP registered a zero monthly change (1.1% in the previous month and -0.4% in July 2021) and an average change in the last twelve months of 4.8% (4.1% in the previous month).

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