Dive Brief:
- According to a press release issued by The Recruitment & Employment Confederation, while permanent placements have reached a 27-month high, and temp billings are up, there are still rampant staffing shortages across Europe — many blaming it on Brexit.
- According to The New York Times, the two-year trend of staffing shortages has driven up starting salaries for candidates, including the hardest to fill roles in finance and IT. London has been hit the hardest of all urban areas.
- Kevin Green, REC Chief Executive said that Brexit was still impacting staffing shortages, making it harder to place skilled candidates.
Dive Insight:
It's been a long, difficult road for Europe since Brexit passed in 2016. Not only did England lose a good number of its contingent workforce, but those who were on EU approved contracts from other nations had to scramble to find new jobs. Many companies have been in a holding pattern since then, not hiring anyone and struggling to maintain current employee levels.
American companies that do business internationally have also been impacted because of talent shortages. If anything, the consequences of Brexit — which aren't yet fully known — show how globalization has transformed the talent acquisition process. Organizations increasingly rely on flexible talent pools that pull from countries all over the world. Harsher immigration policies, regardless of the politics, tend to make that more difficult.
Experts say the effects of Brexit could reverberate for the next decade, so employers must be diligent to recruit and train as much as possible to offset these global issues.
