The NHS staffing crisis could be set to worsen as tens of thousands of EU jobseekers turn their backs on Britain and look elsewhere for work, data released today by the world’s largest job site Indeed reveals.
In the three years to April 2018, the proportion of European candidates looking for UK healthcare jobs on Indeed fell by a fifth (21%).
Indeed’s data shows Europeans’ appetite for UK jobs has fallen steadily since 2015 – the year before the EU referendum – coinciding with a fall in the value of sterling and improving economic conditions in a number of EU countries. The UK sector hit hardest is construction, which has seen its share of European job enquiries tumble by almost half (down 42%).
Both healthcare and construction rely heavily on European workers. One in 10 doctors in English hospitals is an EU national, as are 10% of UK construction workers. London’s construction industry is particularly at risk from a fall in European recruits; nearly a third (32%) of the capital’s builders are EU nationals, according to official figures.
The study, by Indeed’s Hiring Lab economics research unit, found that from mid-2015 European jobseekers as a whole became less interested in UK jobs. However the drop-off was sharpest among those in Ireland (down 44%) and Poland (down 26%). By contrast, demand for UK jobs held up well among the Italians, French and Spanish.
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