Aurea Imai, a managing partner in Sao Paulo for international headhunting firm Boyden, said many professionals flocked to Brazil between 2010 and 2013 when they saw growth potential and a demand for high-quality executives. Now, many of them are leaving – quickly.

“We’ve seen a decrease of almost 40% of expatriates in large companies,” Imai said, “and resumes from global executives have decreased to almost zero.”

Spaniard Javier García-Ramos is one of them. When BBC Capital first caught up with him in 2014 he had traded a sluggish economy in Madrid for a thriving one in Sao Paulo. Now, the investment banker has returned to Spain and said a number of friends and colleagues also returned home as the economic outlook soured in Brazil.