UK 
United States
On October 31, many of us will be attending fancy dress parties or taking out children to go trick-or-treating as part of the annual celebration of Halloween. However, the spooky day will also mark another notable point in British history as the UK prepares to depart from the European Union.
Of course, it still depends on whether MPs agree on a deal or no-deal Brexit, but PM Boris Johnson has pledged to take the UK out of the EU with or without a deal. Whatever the outcome may be, employers and hiring managers have already started to feel the brunt of the UK’s impending departure. So much so that according to the CIPD, in the period since June 2016, the combination of a strong labour demand, low unemployment and a 95% fall in EU nationals joining the UK workforce between Q1 2018 and Q1 2016 has put significant pressure on recruitment.
Meanwhile, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found that EU migration to the UK was at its lowest level in 10 years, falling to 57,000 people in the year to September 2018. A company that certainly has started to notice this struggling recruitment process is British restaurant Searcys. Speaking with Kate Bell, Head of People at Searcys, she told HR Grapevine that there is still a great deal of uncertainty about how Brexit will impact the business.
“Some of our leaders themselves are EU nationals so they are wondering how it (Brexit) will impact them as an individual, as well as how it will impact their ability to recruit,” she explained. “Like the rest of the country, we’re all slightly wondering what’s going on from a personal perspective.”
