Unemployed Brits and Expats Get Creative to Get a Job

Whether you’re a Brit living onshore in the UK, or you’ve already decided to up sticks and head for greener pastures abroad, you cannot escape the recession because as the media is so keen to tell us all, it’s a global phenomenon!

There are unemployed Brits in the UK desperately seeking an escape, and there are unemployed expats living abroad and wondering how they’re going to make their finances work now that they can’t fall back on the State in these troubled times.  It seems that both camps are getting creative with it comes to getting a job.

We have the Telegraph’s ‘Jobless in Henley’ diarist, (that’s a blogger to you and me), seriously thinking about expatriating to find a more affordable life abroad where there are still jobs, and you have case studies galore where working age expats are commuting from their idyllic life in the sun back to the UK for employment.  It seems that living the dream is not as easy as it once was, but if you’re prepared to be creative, you can still have your cake and eat it…just!

‘Jobless in Henley’ was looking at New Zealand the last time I checked in with her, and who can blame her.  The quality of life down there is impressive.  There is great emphasis on outdoor living, and on family life too.  Both are conducive for good mental and physical health, in my book anyway!  There are also still employment options open to you – although jobs are getting scarcer.  What’s more, there are still skills gaps that need plugging in New Zealand and so if you have the necessary talents and qualifications, you could well find your path to a new and better life is relatively smooth – even in these exceptionally hard times.

New Zealand along with Canada and Australia have skills shortages, all are nation options open to Britons wanting to escape UK.  And the jobs and homes escaping Brits vacate can be used by the returning expats who need a temporary home in Britain whilst they regroup or work a way to continue funding their dream of a life abroad.  There’s a growing band of British expat who maintain a home overseas, possibly with spouse and children ensconced within, whilst they reverse euro-commute and work out of Britain to earn the pounds and pennies they need to keep their expat dreams alive!

These fiscally challenging times are unprecedented for all of us living through them, and the more astute amongst us will recognise that despite positive media manipulation of house price data etc., the trying times are set to last a long, long time.  Therefore, we would urge you to get creative if you want to maintain at least some control over your destiny.  Whilst for some this means becoming expats when they were perhaps not even thinking about that option, for others who have already moved abroad it can be a case of revising plans a little, at least whilst the world straightens its coffers out.