Monster finds EU job searchers falling significantly

Data from monster.co.uk suggests number of EU workers actively searching for jobs in the UK has dropped by 11.4 per cent since the referendum. The UK jobs market that employed 2.35 million EU nationals in 2017 has seen the biggest backlash from Romanian job seekers, with Romanian search traffic to UK jobs dropping by 52 per cent, followed closely by Portugal (42 per cent) and Poland (35 per cent).

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The data also reinforces skills shortage concerns for important sectors in the UK, with IT and engineering amongst the top 10 job categories receiving fewer searches from EU countries.

Despite this, Monster.co.uk is still seeing healthy interest from UK job seekers who make up 80 per cent of all traffic to the site. The data also shows British businesses have seen some EU countries showing increased interest for UK jobs – Germany (1 per cent), Finland (18 per cent) and Sweden (20 per cent). Searches from outside EU countries have also risen with the US, India and the Philippines leading the surge. Those looking for roles have driven an uplift in searches for skills categories including Medical/Health (1 per cent), Marketing (8 per cent) and Security (14 per cent) roles.

The need for certain skills from UK businesses is increasing with the number of engineering jobs posted on Monster.co.uk rising proportionally by 11.2 per cent. Demand for roles in Customer Support/Client Care also proportionally by 11.3 per cent, followed by Building Construction/Skilled Trades (3.13 per cent), Business/Strategic Management (4.3 per cent) and Biotech/R&D/Science (18.1 per cent).

“While the proportion of international traffic from outside the EU has increased, a fall in active searches from EU Countries in the wake of the referendum threatens to leave UK businesses unable to fill critical skilled roles. And things could get even more challenging,” said Sinead Bunting, VP Marketing Europe, monster.co.uk. “While no one knows for sure what kind of deal the UK will get as it exits the EU, it seems certain we will end up with controlled movement of EU workers, further restricting the supply of labour against a background of rising vacancies and full employment. To counter this, successful companies must focus recruitment efforts on passive job seekers – those not actively looking.

“In the past targeting passive job seekers at scale has been very difficult to do, and costly, our technology-driven digital first approach makes a massive difference. At Monster, we recently launched Power Job Ads app to target people within their everyday lives across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as lifestyle and news sites. We’re already seeing a conversion rate two to three times higher than traditional job ads.”

Monster.co.uk launched Power Job Ads in 2017 as a solution to the lack of active candidates in the current jobs landscape. According to their figures 51 per cent of all candidates now want to be found rather than search for jobs themselves. Monster Power Job Ads is positioned as a first for the industry, the only job advertising solution capable of targeting active and passive job seekers at the same time, without substantial extra cost or having to navigate a complicated system. Monster.co.uk also launched Monster Job Search, a Tinder style mobile app where you just swipe to apply, to make the job search easier and faster and to further address the way consumers approach finding a job.