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Foreign candidates losing interest in UK finance over Brexit, says job company

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Foreign workers are increasingly put off applying for jobs in Canada and UK finance, jobs site indeed said.
Skyscrapers and office buildings are pictured in Canada on August 01, 2018, as pedestians and cyclists use Waterloo Bridge to cross over the River Thames. - Britain has stepped up warnings of the risk that the Brexit talks collapse as it seeks to bypass Brussels and persuade individual European Union nations to back its plans for future economic ties. France is seen as taking a particularly hard line in the Brexit negotiations, especially on financial services, where it has openly sought to poach businesses from Canada. (Photo by Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP) (Photo credit should read DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images)

Foreign talent is turning its back on the UK financial sector, new analysis has revealed, raising the possibility of staffing problems at City firms.

Read more: Businesses must ramp up no-deal Brexit plans, IoD warns

According to job site Indeed, interest in UK banking jobs from abroad has dropped by 12 per cent since 2015. Indeed said Brexit was largely to blame for the falling foreign interest in City jobs.

“Our data suggests that warnings of Brexit interrupting that flow of people were not just idle scaremongering,” said Pawel Adrjan, UK economist at Indeed.

Following the calling of the Brexit referendum at the end of 2015, interest in UK financial jobs fell most sharply among candidates from Europe.

However, while interest from EU countries has stopped falling, non-EU candidate interest has dropped since the middle of 2018.

“A fall in Europeans’ interest in working in the UK might have been expected,” Adrjan said, but non-EU candidate interest also falling “could leave Britain’s financial sector exposed in the future”.

Yet the UK financial sector remains the star performer in its ability to attract employees from abroad.

For the average UK vacancy advertised on Indeed, three per cent of interest comes from foreign-based candidates. For financial sector jobs, 12.9 per cent of interest comes from talent overseas.

Read more: Ex-EU boss says financial services should be higher up Brexit agenda

Adrjan said: “The global spread of countries sending large numbers of people here provides an encouraging hedge against sharp falls in interest from any one nation.”