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UK searches for jobs abroad have surged after the general election
The number of Britons searching online for jobs abroad jumped 25% following the release of the initial results of the U.K.’s general election, according to global jobs site Indeed.Job searches on Indeed started to climb at 10 p.m. on Thursday December 12, when an exit poll predicted the Conservative Party would win 368 seats in…
The number of Britons searching online for jobs abroad jumped 25% following the release of the initial results of the U.K.'s general election, according to global jobs site Indeed.
Job searches on Indeed started to climb at 10 p.m. on Thursday December 12, when an exit poll predicted the Conservative Party would win 368 seats in British parliament.
Ultimately the Conservatives won 365 seats, a big gain on their 2017 performance and well above the 326 needed by a political party to secure a majority in the House of Commons.
Searches on Indeed's site then peaked at 4 a.m. on Friday December 13, around the time early results made it clear Prime Minister Boris Johnson's ruling party were on track to secure a comfortable win.
Overall, job searches for roles abroad rose 25% on the previous Friday, calculated as the share of all searches by Indeed users using a U.K. IP address.
Canada was the top searched destination, with an increase of 111% on the previous week. This was followed by Ireland (44%), Italy (32%), Germany (28%), Australia (20%) and Poland (20%).
This resounding majority now means Johnson, unlike before the election, sits in a stronger position from which to push Brexit through parliament, increasing the likelihood the U.K. will leave the European Union before the deadline of January 31 2020.
“Interestingly, the countries that saw the biggest increases were Canada and Ireland, English-speaking countries with strong ties to the U.K.,” said Pawel Adrjan, economist at Indeed. “However, there were also large rises in searches for jobs in other European countries which suggests foreign workers in the U.K. could be looking to work on the continent or could be returning home.”
These non-U.K. citizens could be concerned about their immigration status, Adrjan added, with the Brexit transition period due to end in December 2020.
EU referendum
The findings echoed previous data collected by Indeed immediately following the EU referendum on June 23 2016.
The day after U.K. voted to leave the EU, on June 24, searches in Britain for jobs around the world were 73% higher than the average in the days before the results were announced.
U.K. job seeker interest in Canada was more than four times higher in the day following the Brexit vote, while there were nearly three times the searches for jobs in Ireland.
Similarly, other data from luggage delivery service SendMyBag, found a “staggering boom” in people relocating from the U.K. to New Zealand in the past year.
It saw a 52% increase in people using its services to move to New Zealand in the first nine months of 2019, compared with the same period in 2018.
Australia was the next most popular destination, with a 24% uptick in people moving over from Britain. The U.S. was third on the list, with SendMyBag seeing 21% more Britons hopping across the pond compared with 2018.
Adam Ewart, CEO of SendMyBag, said the increasing popularity of moving to countries outside the EU, which are “insulated from Brexit,” made “practical sense” given that “there's still no certainty around European citizenship, or the impact of Brexit on our economy and house prices.”
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