UK sees increased interest from non-EU job seekers

LONDON, Aug 22 (Reuters) – Britain has seen a surge in job searches abroad over the past year, partly reflecting a post-Brexit relaxation in work visa rules for non-EU citizens. European Union, figures from the hiring website Indeed showed on Tuesday.

A record 5.5% of UK job searches on the Indeed website in June came from potential applicants outside the country, up from 4.4% the year before and an average of 3.6% between 2017 and 2019 .

Pawel Adrjan, Indeed’s research director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said the surge showed growing interest in higher-skilled jobs, such as software development from non-EU applicants, and a shift from less-skilled roles to those European workers had played before. Britain left the EU in January 2020.

“The UK government’s new immigration policy is working as planned,” Adrjan said.

EU job seekers accounted for 1.4% of Indeed UK job searches in June, slightly less than before Brexit, while non-EU interest has more than doubled to the 4.1% of searches. India, Nigeria, South Africa and Pakistan were some of the main origins of the searches.

The Bank of England has focused on labor shortages as wage growth has accelerated to its highest level in more than 20 years despite a recent drop in inflation.

The UK government gradually removed the unrestricted right of most EU citizens to move to Britain for work after Brexit.

However, the visa rules have been relaxed so as not to require employers to prove they cannot hire a UK or EU worker, as long as they are for roles that pay at least £26,200 ($33,431) a year, slightly below Britain’s average annual wage. and offered at least the going rate for that type of work.

Lower-paid workers can receive visas in areas with acute labor shortages, primarily in medical and social care.

But employers in sectors such as hospitality and lower-wage manufacturing and construction areas are now having a hard time recruiting from abroad.

In 2022, Britain saw a record net migration of 606,000, according to official estimates.

Immigration to developed countries has picked up in recent years, driven by tight labor markets and an aging population, Adrjan said.

Canada and Australia have seen foreign-sourced job searches roughly double since 2019 to 10.9% and 17.2% of total job searches in those countries, respectively, according to Indeed, which claims to receive 330 Millions of unique visitors every month.

By contrast, the numbers for overseas job seekers heading to the US and EU were 3.4% and 2.7% respectively, both barely changed from before the pandemic, according to Indeed.

($1 = 0.7837 pounds)

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