A survey found a shift to safer jobs and an exodus of foreign workers.
British companies have stepped up their search for new staff as pubs, restaurants and other hospitality and travel companies are preparing for Monday’s removal of coronavirus restrictions in England, according to a survey.
But an exodus of foreign workers exacerbates the shortage of candidates, with more than ten jobs for all job seekers in some cities, according to a survey by job search website Adzuna.
Employment announcements in Adzuna rose to 987,800 in the first week of May, 18% more than the end of March, which was before the reopening of non-essential shops and hospitality companies for outdoor service on April 12th.
On Monday, in England, there is another lifting of restrictions to allow pubs and restaurants to cater to customers inside.
Adzuna said companies they wanted to hire include pub companies Whitbread, Stonegate Pub Company and JD Wetherspoons, restaurant chains Nando’s and Pizza Express, Marriott hotels and the airline Ryanair.
However, many workers had given up looking for hospitality and retail jobs in favor of safer work after three closures last year, he said.
“There are also far fewer foreign workers looking for work in the UK with an interest abroad to be employed in the UK more than half before the pandemic, severely affecting these industries,” said Andrew Hunter, co-founder of ‘Adzuna.
Adzuna said between February and April they were applying for work in the UK for 250,000 people applying for work in Western Europe and North America, before the pandemic.
“British employers can no longer rely on foreign workers to fill the job gaps,” Hunter said.
Labor gaps
A combination of Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic is believed to have reduced the number of foreign workers in Britain.
The British Statistics Office estimates that the number of non-UK citizens employed in the country in the last three months of 2020 fell by 4 per cent from the same period in 2019 to 4.22 million, according to the tax data, compared to a 2.6 per cent drop for British citizens to 24 million.
Adzuna said there were 13 job offers per job seeker in Manchester, while the proportion in Cambridge and Oxford was 11. In Maidstone, in the south-east of England, there were 20 job vacancies. work for each job seeker.
The shortage of workers is not unique to Britain. U.S. hospitality companies have said their holiday seasons are threatened by staff shortages, echoing recent problems in Australia.
There has been no dreaded increase in job losses in Britain, thanks in large part to a massive system of public employment subsidies. This advance scheme will have to be phased out over the summer before ending in September.
A separate survey showed that British employers were the most optimistic about hiring since 2013 and basic wage expectations are expected to rise from 1% to 2% in the next 12 months.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s survey of more than 1,000 employers also found that redundancy intentions had returned to pre-pandemic levels.
“Despite the obvious optimism of this quarter’s survey, this strong employment growth is likely to soften over the course of 2021,” said Gerwyn Davies, senior advisor to the CIPD labor market.
