England’s failure to land football’s 2018 World Cup is a “tragedy” for the UK jobs market, according to Stephen Menko, managing director of HR recruiter Ortus.

Menko’s comments follow yesterday’s award of the 2018 FIFA world cup to Russia rather than England, which would have been the first world cup since England’s triumphant campaign of 1966.

“This is a tragedy for the UK’s jobs market. An event like this would have created thousands of jobs and would have kept the UK’s HR professionals very busy struggling to expand workforces in hospitality, leisure, retail, and marketing.  

“The economic impact of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics on Southern California was $2.3bn and supported 73,375 jobs. The Seoul Olympics in 1988 generated an economic impact of $1.6bn with 336,000 new jobs. Barcelona in 1992 generated $30m with 296,640 new jobs. Atlanta in 1996 produced an economic impact of $5.1bn with 77,026 jobs created. Sydney in 2000 generated an economic benefit of $4.7bn with 114,966 jobs created. The most successful Olympic Games to date was Athens in 2004 which produced an average economic impact of $13.05bn with 372,700 new jobs.  

“It’s not just the Olympics - the UEFA Champions League Final alone earned Rome more than €45m (£38m) from hosting the 2009 Final. If we’d have won the bid, the World Cup would have created an employment bonanza. Now we can kiss that adrenaline shot to the jobs market goodbye.”