Londoners pessimistic about finding new jobs

The working class in London expressed pessimism about finding a new job within three months if they lose their current source of income, Bloomberg reported citing poll data.

The people appeared uneasy about being employed not only in London but other regions of England in the survey conducted by Deltapoll, which indicated gloom about the outlook of the country's economy.

As per the polls' data, about 38% of people in London said they were “not confident” about their ability to find another job in three months.

"That was 11 points higher than those in the rest of South, 6 points above the Midlands and 5 points higher than those in the North. Only people in Scotland were more pessimistic," the report stated.

The sentiment showed growing concerns about the job market in London owing to the sudden 4% hike in national unemployment.

"London and the West Midlands have the highest levels of joblessness in England," the report cited last week's official data.

It also reflected the difference between living in the long-standing economic hub of England and working there, as the soaring cost of living and increasing trend of working remotely has given people a reason to avoid commuting to city centres.

Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies, observed a greater likelihood of Londoners being jobless as compared to residents of other regions of the country.

“Lots of people who work in higher paid jobs in London commute from the wider South East and will probably feel that they’d have a decent chance of finding another job if their current one ended,” Wilson said.

“Londoners work in those jobs too, but they also work in the visitor economy, hospitality and retail, which are all pretty exposed if there’s a wider slowdown,” he said. “They may feel like they would struggle to find other jobs in those industries if they lost their current job.”

On the contrary to this, a greater number of people were optimistic about getting employment outside the UK, despite London still generating jobs.

According to Dan Harris, director of the recruitment company Robert Walters remote working and a shift toward moving jobs to cheaper nations outside the UK may have left workers with a sharper sense of competition.

“In the tech space, there has been off-shoring to Poland, both for the cost savings and because of the talent that is available there,” he said, adding that banks that traditionally focused in London are building a hub in Manchester. “In the current financial climate, those cost savings are going to look attractive to businesses," he added.