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The UK government’s immigration advisers have called for one of the main ways for employers to hire overseas workers to be scrapped in an industry facing chronic staff shortages.
The Immigration Advisory Committee tasked with reviewing the Shortage Occupation List (SOL) for easing visa conditions said on Tuesday the current system could drive down wages and leave workers vulnerable to exploitation.
The overall economics are also questionable, with many employers unable to afford the high costs of using the system, MAC said.
“We are not convinced that SOL is an effective tool to address labor shortages across occupations and sectors,” said Brian Bell, professor of economics at King’s Business School and chairman of MAC.
The committee’s recommendations, if passed, would frustrate business groups lobbying for SOLs to be extended to areas such as hospitality, where many employers have struggled to recruit since Brexit.
Meanwhile, some Conservative MPs, including Immigration Secretary Robert Jenrick, have called for a rethink of the UK’s post-Brexit visa system, particularly the decision to add carers to the shortage occupation list in early 2022.
Inclusion in the SOL allows employers to recruit outside the UK at 80% of the UK occupation’s “prevailing wage”, with a minimum annual wage of £20,960 – compared to the £26,200 threshold for the main “skilled worker” visa route. For nursing staff, the usual standards of skills are also abandoned.
Since the change, overseas recruitment into the care sector has surged, with net migration reaching a record high. Nursing and advanced care workers combined accounted for half of the total visas issued to skilled workers in the year to June this year.
But there are also widespread reports of employers underpaying caregivers or charging them exorbitant “relocation costs” if they seek to change jobs due to poor working and living conditions.
The committee said the principle behind its review was that employers should no longer be allowed to pay wages below prevailing wages in the UK.
This means there is no point in keeping high-paying occupations such as architects or IT technicians on the shortage list, as the main skilled worker route is already available to employers willing to match UK wage levels. In any case, the pay scale for nurses and other NHS staff is national.
As such, the Shortage Occupations List is only useful to employers in low-wage industries where workers face “particularly significant” risks of exploitation, MAC said.
Creating a system that makes migrants dependent on visa sponsors to stay in the country increases that risk, the report said, adding: “We cannot get away from this – it is an inevitable consequence of this decision.”
The MAC said despite concerns about exploitation, nursing staff should remain on the shortage list for now because if government funding is too tight for employers to pay competitive wages, they will have no choice but to recruit overseas.
However, the MAC said it had not seen evidence to justify including most other low-wage positions. Bell said expanding the youth mobility program would be better suited for industries such as the hotel industry. Employers can hire immigrants who arrived through other routes, as students or family members, he added.
The MAC urges the government to take a broader approach in areas of serious labor market problems, focusing on training, pay and conditions and immigration rules.
If ministers want to retain the SOL, it will recommend a streamlined list of just eight occupations, including bricklayers, roofers and renovators; laboratory and pharmaceutical technicians; and a number of motorsport industry roles, as well as paramedics and senior nursing staff. Fishing captains and shipbuilders will be added to the list in Scotland alone.
Jamie Cater, senior policy manager at manufacturers group Make UK, said the abolition of jobs such as welders and the refusal to add others such as sheet metal workers would be a concern for the industry.
He said that while recruiting overseas was not a long-term solution to talent shortages, SOL was “an effective way to alleviate some of these challenges”.
The reporter contacted the government for comment. Home Office ministers said at the start of the review that they supported the MAC’s premise that employers should pay at least prevailing rates, but did not say whether they would accept the committee’s recommendations.
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