potential impact of Brexit on different sectors

potential impact of Brexit on different sectors

In case Britain votes to leave the EU in June, the impact will be felt very differently across the sectors of the UK economy with agriculture, hospitality and retail as the areas most affected.  According to a new study from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, undertaken for the Financial Times newspaper, most jobs in the UK labour market are not eligible for employer-sponsored work visas under the current immigration system and this will affect certain sectors more than others.

Most of the workers from the European Union are currently employed by hotels and restaurants.

“Most sectors of the UK labour market now have a significant EU migrant workforce – and many of these are lower paid sectors, such as hotels and manufacturing. Even if the immigration system is redesigned after a Brexit vote, any system that selects EU workers based on skills and pay is likely to hit these sectors hardest”, explain Dr Carlos Vargas-Silva, the author of the Migration Observatory report Potential implications of admission criteria for EU nationals coming to work in the UK.

It is not clear yet which system might be use if UK leaves the European Union, but we can consider the one currently used for non-European workers as a model. Under this work visa scheme it is necessary to have a job offer in a graduate-level job position of at least £20,800 to be able to qualify for a Tier 2 Visa.
This means that certain sectors with higher paying jobs are less likely to be affected.  Thye “Banking and Finance” and “Public administration, Education and Health” sectors which are higher paying, are the second and third largest employers of the UK’s EU migrant workers, respectively.

The report also shows that if the main motive to leave the European Union is to stop immigration, free movement could remain largely unaffected if the UK adopt the Norway model. The country is not a member of the EU but has access to the EU single market as part of the European Economic Area (EEA).

 “The biggest challenge with analysing the impacts of Brexit on migration is that we can’t know what policies EU citizens would face until after the referendum. Some scenarios involve almost no change to policy at all, while others would be a huge departure from the status quo”, points out Dr Carlos Vargas-Silva.

UK workforce – 2015

-    4% - “Agriculture”  
-    6% - “Distribution, Hotel and Restaurant” - which also includes retail.
-     “Banking and Finance” and “Public administration, Education and Health” were much more likely to be in higher-paying graduate jobs, at 34% and 33% respectively. Last year, they were the second and third largest employers of the UK’s EU migrant workers, respectively.
 
To read the full report: http://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/reports/potential-implications-admission-criteria-eu-nationals-coming-uk