Conversation Starter: 2024 election drives 5-fold surge in international job searches

Once every four years, November becomes the month where emotions run high as people anticipate the presidential election results. Many people ask themselves “Will my candidate win or will I move out of the country?” Of course, moving internationally isn’t as simple as packing up one’s things and shipping them and loved ones overseas. Ensuring financial stability for the family and navigating the immigration process are essential steps, both of which are addressed by finding an international job.

The 2024 presidential election was called around 1 AM PST on November 6th. As the results started to trickle in, some Americans immediately started searching for international job opportunities even before the results were finalized. The initial peak occurred around 8PM PST on November 5th, followed by a bigger spike in the early hours of November 6th, increasing almost 7-fold (575%) from the number of international job clicks at 6PM PST the previous day. The spike in clicks continued through November 7th, though not as strongly. In sum, on November 6th, the day after the election, U.S. workers’ job-seeking activity for international positions climbed almost 5-fold (397%) compared to the previous Wednesday.

Meanwhile, U.S.-based job clicks saw a small increase from the previous week, but nowhere near as strong of a trend.

The most popular international jobs were spread out across the map. Canada is often cited as the go-to place people say they are moving to–as it is the most similar culturally to the US–and job clicks to Canadian jobs did in fact climb 104% during the week of the election. However, that increase only ranked 23rd against other countries. Among the top 20 countries with the highest percentage increase in job clicks, the three primarily English-speaking countries were New Zealand at 1st, Ireland at 4th (tied), and Australia at 13th (tied). Many Spanish-speaking countries also made the list, including Uruguay (2nd), Panama (4th, tied), Costa Rica (10th), Mexico (13th), Ecuador (15th), and Spain (16th). This suggests that the people who feel the most alienated by the election results are those in the Latiné population. The rest of the list is filled with various European countries where English is commonly spoken as a second or third language.

Table 1: Foreign countries with largest percent change in search activity from U.S. job seekers

Methodology

Our analysis defines search activity as job clicks performed by U.S.-based users on Glassdoor.com. Only clicks with a specified target location are included, which are then aggregated up to the country level. Click data is analyzed from October 28 through November 11, 2024. 

Appendix

Table 2: Most popular foreign countries for U.S. job seekers