BOSSES AND UNIONS WARN OF STAFF SHORTAGES
Businesses welcomed the removal of a cap on migrant numbers, the opening up of routes or skilled workers and the lowering of the £30,000 salary threshold initially proposed. But they worry about shortages in major industries. The unemployment rate is just 3.8% and there are more than 800,000 unfilled vacancies, 100,000 of which are in the NHS. Businesses and public services worry about cutting off the flow of lower-skilled European migrants at a time of what looks something like full employment. The IPPR think tank reckons that 66% of the current EU workers in health and social care, 85% in hotels and hospitality, 90% in the transport and storage sector and 59% in construction, would be ineligible for visas under the new system, delivering a “shock” to key sectors of the economy.
Unions said the care system would be “on its knees” should the policy be introducing without further reductions in the minimum salary, with Unison assistant general secretary Christina McAnea saying that plans would “spell absolute disaster for the care sector.” The chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Dame Donna Kinnair, said: “We are concerned that these proposals from the Government will not meet the health and care needs of the population. The national farmers’ union president Minette Batters expressed ‘serious concerns’ about the Government’s failure to recognize British food and farming’s needs. Mark Harrison, of the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), raised concerns about bakers, meat processors and workers producing food like cheese and pasta not qualifying under the new regime. Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chamber of Commerce, said the application process needed to be “radically simplified” if small and medium-size businesses were to navigate the system. The Institute of Directors said it was concerned the UK’s “economic dynamism” would be harmed while the CBI said the system would need to be flexible to keep pace with changes in the job market.
Labour also criticized the plan, with Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott saying it will need so many exemptions that changes are “meaningless”. Liberal Democrat home affairs spokeswoman Christine Jardine said the proposals were based on “xenophobia” and not the “social and economic needs of our country”.
ARE EONOMICALLY INACTIVE PEOPLE THE ANSWER TO SHORTAGES?
The government hopes to encourage British people back into the labour market to fill in staff shortage gaps. Priti Patel, the home secretary, argues that “we have over 8.45m people in the UK aged between 16 and 64 who are economically inactive”. She was responding as sectors from care homes to farming warned they would face difficultly recruiting. But official figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the 8.5 million 16 to 64 year olds currently not seeking work include around 2.3 million students and 2.1 million long-term sick, as well as more than 1.1 million who are retired and 1.9 million who are looking after their family or home. Less than 1.9 million of the total were recorded as wanting a job.
The home secretary accepted that her own parents – who set up a chain of newsagents after arriving in the UK in the 1960s – would not have been allowed into the UK under her new rules, though she suggested that they might instead have qualified under arrangements for refugees, having faced persecution in Uganda.
Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, said it was “not credible” for ministers to expect millions of pensioners, students and carers to enter the workforce. “Precarious youth and seasonal visas aren’t the answer either,” she said. “The government’s plans will make it easier for bad bosses to exploit migrant workers and drive down pay and conditions for everyone.”
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: “Priti Patel is clearly clueless about the labour market. Not only has she unveiled an immigration policy that potentially devastates our social care sector – detrimentally impacting on some of the most vulnerable in society – she’s also justifying it by saying that those who are carers, sick or retired should take up these jobs.”
Luke Davis, an academic researcher at UCL, wrote that these new toughened immigration laws will add more unskilled and poorly paid jobs to the already high number of job vacancies in the UK, and that it is unlikely to solve the more pressing problem of in-work poverty, poor wage growth and precarious employment.
A POLITICAL INITIATIVE DISGUISED AS AN ECONOMIC ONE?
So if the new immigration policy make life harder for businesses, public services or workers, who is it designed to benefit?
Britain’s departure from freedom of movement mean that new immigration rules are needed. But the governing approach in the new plan appears to be aimed at scoring points with voters who made it clear that the primary takeaway from Brexit was the need for strict immigration controls, rather than trying to solve legitimate labour market issues that face businesses and domestic or overseas workers. The polls show that a majority want immigration cut, and everything this week’s plan shows is that it intended to be another “job done” moment for the Tories, just like Boris Johnson’s election campaign, and Brexit itself.
