Throughout lockdown, we heard how hundreds of thousands of European language speakers left the UK to return to their own countries. There was a lot of doom-and-gloom as the economy stagnated, and job losses mounted.
But since the end of lockdown, the doom-and-gloom ended. The lockdown marked the start of an economic ‘golden age’ not seen since the roaring 20’s.
So, what’s changed? Well, for one, lockdown ended, and the economy started opening up and companies started to recruit again.
Also, as we’ve just found out recently that at least 5.6 million EU citizens have applied for the EU Settlement Scheme, giving them the right to live, work and healthcare in the UK. A result of this is there is not such a shortage of multilingual workers as previously predicted.
But…
There are still sectors with massive gaps between the short supply and strong demand for workers. For example, we at ABL Recruitment get tonnes of enquiries for candidates with fluent German, when there are fewer German-speakers in the UK than ever before. We think this deficit will only get worse as more DACH natives return to their home countries.
How do we get around this?
The simple answer is to raise the salaries you’re offering for roles with in-demand languages like German, French and the Nordic languages. This will make the roles you’re offering stand out from your competitors’ job ads.
If this does not help, then try recruiting people remotely. If your company has a subsidiary in Germany, why not try recruiting directly through them?
If you need any help with all this or any other recruitment-related queries feel free to contact us on 02070923911.
