Bulgarian diaspora

Over one million Bulgarians have left the country, either permanently or as a temporary workforce, leading to a marked decline in its population.

In countries such as Germany and Spain where many Bulgarians work and stay there intermittently, while retaining Bulgaria as their permanent residence.

Most of the causes for the spread of the post-1990s Bulgarian diaspora throughout the EU member states and North America have been related to work and education.

That includes people of various skills - lower education workers (which usually deal with utilities and housekeeping), plumbers, construction workers, gardeners, handymen, maids, as well as a substantial amount of higher-education specialists - usually from the areas of engineering, computer science, chemistry and medicine.

The largest communities of the Bulgarian diaspora in the Western part of the European Union are in Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy.