Employers opt to 'wait and see' post-Brexit vote

Dive Brief:

When the Brexit vote came down, global employers with British-based workers faced immediate uncertainty. But now that a few days have passed, those same employers are telling their minions to maintain the status quo until more is known about how Brexit will unfold, according to the Wall Street Journal.
There are some immediate issues (work-visa requirements for non-U.K. Europeans are mentioned), but employers realize that the time horizon for major changes are two years, or even longer, down the road.
Brynne Herbert, founder and CEO of employee-relocation firm MOVE Guides, told the Journal that even though her company stands to profit from Brexit, “it’s quite concerning as a CEO to think of what the future looks like from a recruitment perspective." Mainly, she said everyone should just stay calm and communicate closely until “... we have full clarity.”

Insight

More than two million EU nationals work in Britain (about 6.8% of the nation's workforce), according to the Journal, citing Britain's Office for National Statistics. Naturally, most players within the business continuum expect "disruptions in careers, recruitment and staffing" along the way.

The Journal says workers in banking and manufacturing could lose jobs or be frozen in place regarding current deals as the ongoing turmoil unfolds. According to the Journal, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon looked to calm his troops but added that the bank “may need to make changes to our legal entity structure and the location of some roles.”

Audit and consulting firm EY has 14,500 employees in the U.K., including many European nationals. Mark Weinberger, the firm's global chairman and chief executive, told the Journal that workers are concerned, but he and his executive team are trying to keep it in context, having "weathered natural disasters and geopolitical unrest," instead telling U.K. workers to take a “deep breath.”

One concern is talent attrition, and Johan Aurik, the global managing partner of management consulting firm A.T. Kearney, said top talent doesn't need much of a nudge to look elsewhere. On the flip side, veteran Gerry Crispin, co-founder of CareerXroads, a recruiting strategy consulting firm in the U.S., posted on his blog that the Brexit vote may be a tremendous chance for American companies in particular to grab up those EU and British workers looking for new jobs in the U.S. and other locations, the Journal reports.