Almost half of the UK workforce is looking for a new job

This research is part of the Aon Consulting European Employee Benefits Benchmark, a survey of more than 7,500 workers from across Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, 10 of the leading economies in Europe. The Benchmark focuses on the views of workers across Europe on topics such as retirement, employee benefits and other pension-related issues.

The Irish are the only workforce more likely to want to swap jobs (49.4%) than the British. Appetite for job hunting was significantly less across the rest of Europe, with Norwegian workers closest behind the UK at 36.4% with the desire to change employer. Job satisfaction appears to be highest in The Netherlands and Belgium, with relatively low numbers (17.4% and 17.5% respectively) reporting they would start job-hunting this year.

A large number of departing employees, particularly senior team members, can throw a company’s growth plans into disarray. On average, across Europe, nearly 20% of workers aged 55 to 64 years old plan on looking for a new job, taking their industry knowledge and experience with them.

Men (48%) are marginally more likely than women (47%) to look for a new job and 18-24 year olds are most likely to seek a move (53%), while older generations are happier to sit tight.

Over half (54%) of those working in engineering expect to actively start looking for a new job while just 21% of those working in logistics are likely to pursue new opportunities by the end of the year.

Peter Abelskamp, executive director of health and benefits for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Aon Consulting, said: "As a result of the recession, many employers across Europe have introduced austerity plans in order to lower costs and maintain profitability. Typically, these have included salary freezes (or even cuts) while the value of associated benefits have seen significant reductions. Such policies have tended to be applied uniformly with little distinction being made between high and low performing employees.

"Not surprisingly, high performing employees are starting to feel unmotivated and trapped and with a glimmer of hope for economic recovery, many such individuals in the UK are now asking themselves whether better opportunities lie elsewhere. The result of this discontent is a significant hike in the number of people intending to seek a job with a new employer. Whether these jobs are out there remains to be seen, but the risk to companies of losing key personnel is definitely very real. This could seriously undermine an organisation's competitive position once the recovery takes hold.

"Without doubt, if you consider an employee to be valuable, the chances are that your competitors will too. Now is an ideal time to rally the troops and incentivise talented personnel by taking a strategic look at their overall remuneration package. Possibilities include the introduction or redesign of flexible benefits packages which allow employees to tailor their benefits to their own personal needs, or by extending long term incentive plans to wider groups of employees, including those with the most attractive skills."

Countries whose employees state they will begin the search for a new job by the end of 2010 (Percentage of respondents who claimed they would begin job hunting by end of 2010):

Ireland (49.4%)

UK (47.4%)

Norway (36.4%)

Switzerland (34.8%)

Spain (34.6%)

France (32.7%)

Germany (31.9%)

Denmark (30.7%)

Belgium (17.5%)

Netherlands (17.4%)

This article was first published on hrmagazine.co.uk