Home Office announces new measures on overseas workers

The Home Office has announced several new measures aimed at reducing the UK’s dependency on international recruitment and encouraging local recruitment over international recruitment.

These measures include:

• Targeting industries such as IT and Engineering companies that heavily rely on overseas labour to ensure they address their failure invest in skills locally.
• Tasking the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to monitor and report annually on sectors with increased overseas recruitment due to skills shortages.
• Stricter regulations on visa sponsorship to penalise employers who violate employment laws, including limiting their ability to hire from abroad.
• Integrating migration policy with the government’s skills and labour market policies to prioritise local recruitment over international hiring.
• Annual evaluations by the MAC to facilitate quicker responses to skills shortages and promote local skills investment.
• Enhancing the role of the MAC with increased capacity to investigate industries most reliant on international labour.

There are significant changes on the horizon for business immigration and we expect these changes to come into force in the imminent future.