Hard-Brexit: Will Any EU Country Be Immune From Job Losses?
During the G7 summit, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted that his country can “easily cope” with a no-deal Brexit which he blamed on the “obduracy” of EU leaders. Preparations for a no-deal Brexit are being ramped up both in the UK and across mainland Europe with Johnson recently stating that the chances of striking a deal are “touch and go”. The ramifications of the UK crashing out without one on October 31 were starkly illustrated by leaked Operation Yellowhammer documents that claimed it could lead to food and petrol shortages, problems accessing medicine and the thorny issue of a hard Irish border
An analysis carried out by Leuven University in Belgium has found that the UK would also suffer considerable job losses under a no-deal scenario. In the unlikely case of Johnson securing a deal and the UK departing in a soft Brexit, 139,860 jobs would be lost. In the case of a disorderly Brexit, total job losses would amount to 526,830. The research shows that the carnage caused by a no-deal Brexit would not be exclusively confined to the UK and that ripples would spread across the continent, impacting job markets in every single EU member state. Notably, it isn’t just countries geographically close to the UK such as Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and France that would be badly affected. Job losses would occur as far away as Sweden, Finland and Greece.
In total, the study predicts that 1.2 million jobs would be lost across the EU if a hard Brexit occurs. The UK would lose 4.4% of its GDP while the remaining EU-27 would lose 1.54%. After the UK, Germany would have the highest number of job losses with nearly 300,000 while France and Italy would also lose close to 140,000 each. Even though that sounds quite bad, the situation is far worse for smaller countries at the center of the Brexit storm like Ireland and Belgium. The study projected that Ireland would lose 50,330 jobs under a no-deal scenario, just over 2.5% of its workforce.
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