UK ‘Faces Labour Shortage’ As Covid and Brexit Fuel Departure Of Overseas Workers

UK ‘Faces Labour Shortage’ As Covid and Brexit Fuel Departure Of Overseas Workers.

The UK could face a labour shortage as overseas workers leave due to COVID 19 and Brexit.

Employers in Britain are struggling as they attempt to hire staff quickly as the UK lockdown lifts, but many overseas workers that have previously been depended on have left due to pressures of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and Brexit.

According to both the recruitment firm Adecco and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), employers will be hiring at a rate which has not been seen in around eight years. The rush to hire people has been caused by the reopening of retail and hospitality sectors as coronavirus restrictions are eased.

Recently the UK has seen unemployment rates stabilise which was helped when the furlough scheme was extended until the end of September.

The UK is now risking labour shortages as the number of EU workers has declined sharply. This is increasing pressures on the jobs market.

According to the Guardian, “overseas job searches from western Europe and North America had halved – a decline of about 250,000 – since February 2020”.

In some parts of the UK there are a staggering 20 jobs per jobseeker, and the places struggling most to hire new staff are Maidstone in Kent, Manchester, Cambridge and Oxford.

Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzunca commented that, “There is hot competition for staff, with many hospitality and retail workers having left the industry to look for more secure work after the ups and downs of the last year.

“There are also far fewer foreign workers seeking employment in the UK, with overseas interest in UK jobs more than halving from before the pandemic, hitting these industries hard. UK employers can no longer rely on overseas workers to plug employment gaps.”

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