Britain’s Labor Gaps Set to Worsen as Brexit Reduces Migration
- Fall in immigration to expose skills gap and ageing population
- Firms want U.K. to prioritize trade and skills in EU talks
Who Will Brexit Impact Most, Consumers or Businesses?
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Problems facing the British labor market including skills shortages and an aging population are likely to be exacerbated by Brexit, according to Mercer.
Those gaps will no longer be filled by foreign workers, which are set to decrease in number as the U.K. negotiates a new relationship with the European Union, the consulting firm said in a report. The U.K. faces slow growth or even contraction of its working population as net migration roughly halves from current levels to 185,000 per year from 2020 onwards, it said. It could fall further depending on how much the government plans to restrict migration from the EU.