More Brits looking for jobs in Canada after Brexit: job search site

Flags fly outside Europe House, the European Parliament's British offices, in central London, with European flag, right, and Britain's Union flag, Tuesday June 21, 2016. (Lauren Hurley / PA via AP)

TORONTO -- A job search website says many United Kingdom residents have started looking for jobs abroad in the wake of the Brexit vote and Canada is high on their destination wishlist.

Indeed.com says the number of U.K. queries for jobs in Canada was over four times the average in the 48 hours following the vote to withdraw from the European Union.

Canada's former high commissioner to the U.K. is not surprised so many Brits are looking for a way out, as Brexit casts a shadow of uncertainty over British markets and investments.

"The future investment (ability) of employers in Britain is going to be hampered and reduced and decline, and there will therefore be fewer jobs in Britain," said Mel Cappe, now a professor of public policy at the University of Toronto.

"If you're in Britain and you work in a precarious job, you want to look around and you want to be at the beginning, not at the end of the queue."

Cappe added that with a similar legal system and English as an official language, Canada is a logical choice for U.K. residents.

Mariano Mamertino, an economic research analyst with Indeed, said U.K. job seekers' interest to Canada may be connected to historical ties between the two countries.

"While post-Brexit job search patterns show that many job seekers in the U.K. are still oriented towards the E.U., many others feel strong ties to the 'anglosphere' of U.K.'s former colonial territories," wrote Mamertino on Indeed's website.

Indeed says the total number of searches for work abroad was 73 per cent higher than average on the day after the vote. In the two days following the vote, searches for jobs in the United States and Australia were 1.7 and 1.9 times higher than average, respectively. Searches for jobs in the rest of the E.U. doubled.

Nicola Snow plans to leave Manchester and join her boyfriend in Cologne, Germany in a matter of weeks. She said her decision to move is "highly motivated by Brexit."

Having recently graduated from university with a degree in ecology and conservation, Snow worries how the Brexit will affect her chosen profession.

"I spent a significant amount of my degree understanding how U.K. regulations help protect and restore the... environment and climate," Snow said. "I found that nearly all of the U.K. (environmental) laws were only in place to conform with (the European Union)."

Snow, 29, also has serious concerns about the U.K.'s economy.

"I cannot risk instability anymore," she said. "My future is already too fragile."

Britain's surprise vote last week to leave the European Union immediately sent global stock markets and the pound plummeting. Since then, Britain's stock market has recouped all of its losses, as the longer-term impact of the Brexit decision still unfolds onto the U.K. economy.