US was the top destination for Britons driven to look for work overseas by the Brexit result, yet the UK barely features in the plans of Americans seeking to leave the US following Trump’s victory.
Contrasting jobseeker search patterns in the wake of the Brexit referendum and the US election suggest the Special Relationship may be a one-way street. Nearly a third of Britons seeking a post-Brexit escape route chose America, but the UK is only seventh choice for Americans – behind New Zealand, Canada and Ireland. Donald Trump polarises jobseekers – with the number of Americans looking for jobs with the search term “Trump” rocketing by 850 percent.
It’s a tale of two Brexits. 2016’s two biggest political upsets – Britain’s vote for Brexit and Donald Trump’s election victory – together triggered millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic to look for jobs abroad. But new analysis by the world’s biggest jobs site Indeed has revealed that British jobseekers’ desire to work in the US is not being mirrored by Americans’ appetite to come here. In the week after Brexit referendum, Indeed data revealed a three-fold surge in the number of Britons searching for jobs overseas. The US was the most popular destination, accounting for nearly a third (30 percent) of all international searches – six times as many as the most favoured EU country, France (5 percent).
Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election elicited a similar knee-jerk response from many American jobseekers. In the first hour after the result emerged, the numbers of Americans searching for jobs in Canada spiked by ten times.
More than a week on, the number of Americans looking for work abroad remains well above pre-election levels – but the UK is well down the list of favoured destinations. The biggest winner of Americans’ sudden desire to relocate is New Zealand – which saw its share of US job searches in the six days following the result increase by more than four times.
Canada saw its share more than double (2.37 times), while searches for jobs in Ireland rose by 91 percent. Meanwhile American jobseekers’ interest in the UK has increased by a more modest 56 percent – only the seventh biggest rise. However the President-Elect polarises US jobseekers. The surge in Americans’ interest in jobs overseas has been matched by a similar spike in the number of jobhunters typing in “Trump” as a search term.
The day after the US election result, the number of Americans searching for “Trump” jobs on Indeed surged to 850 percent above its normal level, and a week on it was still close to 500 percent higher than usual.
