Searches for foreign jobs surged 25% immediately after last week’s General Election exit poll was published, according to data from Indeed.

Searches for foreign jobs on Indeed surged immediately after exit poll results were published at 10pm on Thursday evening.

On Friday, 13 December, searches for jobs outside the UK were 25% higher than on the prior Friday, calculated as a share of all searches by Indeed users with a UK IP address. Searches for jobs abroad peaked at approximately 4 am when the Conservatives were on course to securing their overall majority. 

“The Conservative Party was swept to power with its largest majority since 1987 in a result that almost certainly means that the UK will leave the EU on 31 January 2020,” Pawel Adrjan, UK economist at Indeed, said. “As the events on the night unfolded and the political picture became clearer, an elevated number of jobseekers started looking for jobs abroad.”

The destination countries that saw the biggest increase in job searches between Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th were: Canada (up 111%), Ireland (44%), Italy (32%), Germany (28%), Australia (20%) and Poland (20%).

According to Indeed, the findings suggest jobseeker behaviour can be quickly influenced by political events.

“It seems UK-based jobseekers were paying close attention to the election result not just for news about their local candidates but to help inform career choices, too,” Adrjan said.

A previous study by Indeed showed UK-based jobseekers immediately looked for work in other countries after the Brexit referendum result in 2016. Searches from the UK to the rest of the world were 73% higher at their peak on 24 June, the day after the vote, than the average in the days before the results were announced.