EU workers searching for jobs in UK drops by over 11%

According to new data

The number of EU workers actively searching for jobs in the UK has dropped by 11.4% since the referendum, according to new data from global jobs site Monster.co.uk.

The UK jobs market that employed 2.35 million EU nationals in 2017 has seen the biggest backlash from Romanian job seekers, with Romanian search traffic to UK jobs dropping by 52%, followed closely by Portugal (42%) and Poland (35%).

The data also reinforces skills shortage concerns for important sectors in the UK, with IT and engineering amongst the top 10 job categories receiving fewer searches from EU countries.

It’s not all bad news however, Monster.co.uk is still seeing healthy interest from UK job seekers who make up 80% of all traffic to the site. The data also shows British businesses have seen some EU countries showing increased interest for UK jobs – Germany (1%), Finland (18%) and Sweden (20%). Searches from outside EU countries have also risen with the US, India and the Philippines leading the surge. Those looking for roles have driven an uplift in searches for skills categories including Medical/Health (1%), Marketing (8%) and Security (14%) roles.

The need for certain skills from UK businesses is increasing with the number of engineering jobs posted on Monster.co.uk rising proportionally by 11.2%. Demand for roles in Customer Support/Client Care also proportionally by 11.3%, followed by Building Construction/Skilled Trades (3.13%), Business/Strategic Management (4.3%) and Biotech/R&D/Science (18.1%).

Sinead Bunting, VP Marketing Europe, Monster.co.uk, said, “While the proportion of international traffic from outside the EU has increased, a fall in active searches from EU Countries in the wake of the referendum threatens to leave UK businesses unable to fill critical skilled roles. And things could get even more challenging.

“While no one knows for sure what kind of deal the UK will get as it exits the EU, it seems certain we will end up with controlled movement of EU workers, further restricting the supply of labour against a background of rising vacancies and full employment. To counter this, successful companies must focus recruitment efforts on passive job seekers – those not actively looking.

“In the past targeting passive job seekers at scale has been very difficult to do, and costly, our technology-driven digital first approach makes a massive difference. At Monster, we recently launched Power Job Ads app to target people within their everyday lives across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as lifestyle and news sites. We’re already seeing a conversion rate two to three times higher than traditional job ads.”