New measures to cut historically high levels of net migration have been announced today, bolstering the Home Secretary’s approach to tackle the root causes behind the UK’s long-term reliance on international recruitment.
Sectors most reliant on overseas workers will be targeted to ensure they are addressing their failure to invest in skills here in the UK.
The government will task the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) with monitoring and proactively highlighting key sectors where skills shortages have led to surges in overseas recruitment and provide a yearly assessment to ministers to inform policy decision making.
Rules around visa sponsorship of migrant workers will also be strengthened so that strong action can be taken against employers who flout employment laws, restricting their ability to hire workers from abroad. This is in addition to work already underway to clamp down on existing sponsor licence holders and to stop visa abuse, such as the ramping up of investigation visits by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI), and suspending and revoking licenses where employers abuse the immigration system and exploit migrant workers.
This follows plans already set out by the Home Secretary to link migration policy with skills and wider labour market policy, so that international recruitment is no longer the default choice for employers filling skills shortages, as well as the government’s confirmation that changes made by the previous administration to the immigration system will remain in place.
The new joined-up approach across government, set out by the Home Secretary in July, establishes a framework in which the newly formed Skills England, the Industrial Strategy Council, together with input from the Department for Work and Pensions, will work closely with the MAC so that migration is not used as an alternative to tackling training or skills shortages in the UK.
The MAC’s annual assessment will help industries respond swiftly to skills gaps and take necessary steps to reduce their dependency on migrant workers and invest in training, workforce plans, and higher quality jobs for workers here at home.
The expanded role for the MAC will be bolstered by additional capacity and includes work to assess the root causes of why certain sectors are so reliant on overseas workers. It has already been commissioned by the Home Secretary to look at IT and engineering – key sectors which have consistently relied on the international workforce, rather than sourcing the workers and skills they need here in the UK.
