Expatexit: One entrepreneur is helping foreigners leave the UK because of Brexit and find jobs elsewhere
While financial firms are discussing whether they will need to move European headquarters or their staff to the continent, one entrepreneur sees the UK's possible brain drain as an opportunity
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Your support makes all the difference.Fears of a talent exodus following the UK’s vote to leave the EU have haunted the British psyche since June.
Last year, The Boston Consulting Group warned that up to 80,000 banking and finance jobs could be moved from London to other centres in Europe in a mass migration worse than at any time during the financial crisis.
But while financial firms are discussing whether they will need to move European headquarters or their staff to the continent, one entrepreneur sees the UK’s possible brain drain as an opportunity.
Marcin Czyza, who use to work in finance, founded Expatexit, a company that aims to help foreigners working in Britain find jobs elsewhere following the Brexit vote.
Mr Czyza said he had already received more than 1,000 registrations since October, with 60 per cent coming from the finance world. After Prime Minister Theresa May confirmed last week that the UK would leave the single market, Mr Czyza said the site saw a spike in interest with four times more registration than usual.
The platform serves both individuals and businesses who are looking to join the new expat-crowd and move their operations.
He told The Independent: “People are concerned that jobs will be cut in the UK and they want to live in a more secure and predictable environment.
“My opinion is that the UK economy will be suffering in the long run... We need to bear in mind that Europe is the UK’s largest trade business partner. A significant percentage of the British economy comes from finance, law, or consulting services. All these jobs are easy to relocate.”
For now the company works as a non-profit organisation, but Mr Czyza hopes to turn the project into a recruitment agency.
People who register on his website provide information around where they would like to relocate to and what type of job they are interested in. Mr Czyza said the most popular destinations are Frankfurt and Paris – two financial hubs – followed by Amsterdam, Barcelona and Berlin. Others are keen to relocate as far away as Singapore.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this month, the boss of UBS’s investment bank, Andrea Orcel, said that his company would definitely have to move some jobs out of the UK as a result of Brexit, echoing similar remarks made by HSBC’s chief executive Stuart Gulliver.
On Thursday, Reuters quoted a spokesman for Barclays in London saying that the banks had “made clear repeatedly that we will plan for a range of Brexit contingencies, including building greater capacity into our existing operations in Dublin”.
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