Number of UK residents seeking jobs in Ireland soars

Employment-related search engine Indeed has reported a huge spike in the number of UK residents searching for jobs in Ireland, in the wake of the Brexit result.

Searches for jobs in Ireland by worried UK residents surged by more than 250 per cent on June 24th, the day the Brexit result was announced, according to the site.

Outbound job searches from the UK to other EU countries were 203 per cent higher than the average traffic level, in the days running up to the referendum.

Meanwhile, job searches from EU residents looking at working in Ireland were 216 per cent higher, which Indeed said was likely due to the reduced attractiveness of UK opportunities.

The data also shows searches for keywords such as “finance”, “analyst”, “data analyst” and “c# programmers” were in the list of top 50 keywords that people located in the UK searched on Indeed.ie in the days following the Brexit. None of these terms were in the top 50 prior to the referendum.

Mariano Mamertino, economic research analyst at Indeed.com, said job seekers looking for an English speaking economy with a strong commitment to Europe and good economic fundamentals are gravitating to Ireland given the uncertainty that now surrounds the free movement of labour to the UK.

“This is real time proof that the Brexit decision instantly changed job seekers preferences, with a decline in the attractiveness of the UK matched by a surge of interest in Ireland.

Mr Mamertino said the Brexit result could lead to a flight of talented workers to Ireland that will be beneficial to sectors facing skills shortages such as technology and financial services.

He said keywords such as “finance” and “data analyst” now feature in the top 50 keywords that people in the UK are searching on Indeed.ie, and neither term featured the top 50 prior to Brexit.

“Unless the UK is able to reassure EU job seekers of their long term employment rights then we would expect these changed search dynamics to continue.”

The jobs site said the trend bears a “striking relationship” to data it collected after the 2015 Greek referendum, which showed the share of Greek jobseekers looking for opportunities outside of Greece doubled in the days following the announcement of a referendum on the European Union’s proposed bailout package.