Looking ahead: Global Trade blockers & uncertainty for recruitment

In light of the ever-changing landscape of the global trade ecosystem, it’s impossible to anticipate how current trade negotiations will impact businesses around the world.

Given the current climate of Brexit and the recent extension, it’s safe to assume that businesses have been impacted significantly as some have allocated an abundance of resources towards an impending no-deal scenario. However, needless to say, we could continue to face disruptions as we roll into 2020, depending on how world leaders approach negotiations.

A recent survey carried out by the EY US Global Trade Department, it highlights very high levels of uncertainty and a lack of confidence behind the current trade negotiations.

This confirms that over half of businesses in the US alone have experienced costs, whether they’re time-driven or financially driven costs, on their ability to run fully compliant trade facilitation operations and processes. The uncertainty, however, lies in the time factor – it’s interesting to see that the majority of trade executives (73%) expect disruptions to last anything between 1 year to the unforeseeable future (EY US).

Whilst the trade wars between the US and China don’t concern the likes of Brexit, it’s clear to see that these disruptions are significantly impacting businesses that deal heavily in cross-border trade. Recognising that trade executives have a lack of confidence in government officials in the US, parallels current events in the ongoing developments in the political climate of the UK.

At this stage, no professional can anticipate the implications of the election alone. However, it can be argued that there will be impending consequences on the market regardless of the outcome. One thing that’s guaranteed, is that this area of indirect tax will continue to be extremely busy and, from a recruitment perspective, one could predict that this will remain to be a very candidate-driven, yet candidate-short market.

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